a new understanding of today, time and space.

Peter_Kropotkin · March 8, 2018, 4:49pm

so what does the above have to do with “Philosophy” …
that answers comes with an understanding of what philosophy actually is…

philosophy isn’t the pursuit of knowledge, it is the pursuit of wisdom
and there in lies the problem that most people have…
Philosophy is divided up into traditional areas of study…
Aesthetics
epistemology
ethics
logic
metaphysics

now tell me, which area is the study of wisdom?

recall that the word philosophy itself means…love of wisdom…
and this is where people go wrong… they pursue knowledge of one
of these branches of philosophy but they don’t pursue the wisdom aspect…

how would you go about changing people to become “good”?

would you knowledge or would you use wisdom?

a logical question would be what is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

knowledge is facts… wisdom is values…oh, we have seen this before haven’t we…
science pursues knowledge/facts and philosophy pursues values

this question of the beginning of creating better people seems to begin, here at least,
with knowledge… creating a better environment is the start of creating better people…

however, it isn’t knowledge that answers the question of environment,
it is wisdom… and sometimes the difference between wisdom and knowledge
is small, very, very small…

so, what are you pursuing, knowledge or wisdom?

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 10, 2018, 6:08am

ok, let try this again… tried to post this yesterday and it didn’t go well…

Let us take a look at modern life… what actions do we take that
improve the environment… and we are not talking about climate change or
the earth’s environment, we are talking about the human environment…
the environment that human beings create in their contact with each other…
how do we create a better environment that allows people to become who they are?

it is often said that taxes are the price of having a civilization… you need taxes to create
a safe and stable and secure environment for human beings, to allow people to create
their own lives… which countries in the world has created safe, stable and secure
environment for their people? it is the counties with the higher taxes… there is a direct
relationship between taxes paid and a country’s safety and stability… if you argue for less
taxes, you are arguing for less safety and less security and less stability in that country…
less taxes means more chaos in a country and is less conductive for human beings to
become who they are…

thinkin in terms of pocketbook politics runs the risk of dismissing the more
important aspects of human life… or said another way, you get what you pay for…
if you want your environment to be a safe and stable and secure place, you and
everyone else, must pay for it…

now occasionally, my wife will get cheap on the weirdest things, but
getting cheap on certain things is not only a bad idea but also a dangerous one…
like parking in San Francisco, you can find cheap spots to park to park, but at what
risk to your car? I would rather spend the money and feel better about my car being
in one piece when I get back… not only for the car, but in piece of mind while we are
out and about walking the streets of S.F… There is no difference between spending a bit
more for a safe environment for my car and paying a bit more for the safety and security
of my civilization…creating a safe and secure environment for all of us… and that cost
money…

so a private tax cut to benefit a small or single group of people that hurts our ability
to create a better environment, hurts all of us… it is being cheap at the wrong time…

I bring this up as a means of understanding how we are connected to our public
environment… creating a safe and stable public space is just as important as
creating a safe and secure private space… like your home…

think of your living space as a safe and stable environment… you feel safe and secure
in your private living space and, and that is how we should feel in our public spaces…
Now what do we have to do to make our public spaces as safe and secure and stable as
our private spaces? and that is the question? how do we achieve this?

Paying taxes is one way to achieve safety and security and stability in our public
spaces, another way is of an active and engage community making sure its public
spaces is safe and secure and stable… it is in everyone’s best interest that we create
safe and secure and stable public spaces… you want to be able to walk out of your front
door and feel just as safe and secure as you do in your living space…everyone does…
and if say, I don’t want a safe and secure public space, you are lying…

public policy must be engaged with creating a safe, secure, stable public places and
it is only by paying taxes can we achieve this vision…

I cannot be me until I exist in a safe and secure and stable environment and you
cannot be you unless you exists in a safe and secure and stable public space/
environment…

so when we think about public policy, we must think in terms of creating
safe, secure and stable public and, and private spaces/ environments…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 11, 2018, 5:39pm

if we look to experience as our guide as I have suggested,
then what does experience tell us about life and its goals?

you are born, you then spend 20 years learning how to be a human,
you then spend 40 years working, then you retire and then you die…

what goal or meaning can we decipher from our overall life or even
or even aspects of it? many of us, we become parents… and what does
that mean in terms of a goal or meaning in life for us?

think of your individual experiences, which are different then my
individual experiences… and think of the meaning of those experiences…
what did those experiences mean? think of education, for example, what
meaning or goal can we come up with the experience of education?
12 years of grade school, 2 or 3 years of JR high school and then 4 years
of high school, then many of us go on to collage and another 4 years of schooling
and some even go for another few years beyond that… all that education and
what is the goal or point of it? to get a job? an awful lot of education just for a job…

and how much experience do we commit to become better human beings?
how many years of education do we spend on becoming someone who is
better then today?.. oh, we don’t do that, the actual experience is supposed
to be enough to make us better human beings…now one might complain and
say, better, what is better? better then what? and that is the point…

we don’t spend the time understanding what is a better human being
and that is a failure we have… now one might say, well experience tells
me that a better human being is… and another might say, no, this experience
tells me what a better human being is…and another might say, no this experience
tells me that…

individually we cannot make sense out of what does make a better human being,
but collectivly, we can make sense of it…within the polis, the city, we can
understand what makes a better human being… it is within our actions
and interactions with each other, experiences, that tell us what will make
us a better human being…

the problem with human beings is we lie to ourselves… perhaps a means to
give us hope in this life? or perhaps to keep us from killing ourselves?
I don’t know, but we lie to ourselves…I lie to myself… and you lie to
yourself…that could be consider the human trait most common to
everyone… we lie… to ourselves…so I lie to myself that I am not
in need of improvement…I lie to myself that I am a good decent human being
that I would never commit crimes or do harm to others… my lies are my lies…
you have your own lies you tell yourself…and we act upon these lie as if they
are some sort of truth…I classify these lies we tell ourselves as part of the
myth, habits, prejudices and superstitions we have…

take away our lies and what is left? very uncomfortable truths…
truths we rather not face…I am not as good looking as I think I am
and I am not as smart as I think I am… but perhaps, perhaps the path to
becoming a better person is unmasking the lies we tell ourselves…

so the path to becoming a better person might exists in overcoming
the lies we tell ourselves… this can be an individual act but,
the lies we tell ourselves become expose to us in our experiences…

IQ45 claimed he would have gone into the latest school shooting in FLA even
if he DIDN’T have a gun…as this is a lie which everyone understood as a lie…
but what is the point of lying to oneself? to create a better self image of
ourselves… to create an self image we can live with…many people
adopt a self image of being a loner and bad guy and a trouble maker…
we see that here… but strip these people of there self created lies
and what do we see… lonely, scared people who won’t admit the truth
about themselves… people stick to the lies they tell themselves
because the truth is too painful…we cannot face the truth about
ourselves… for me, it is quite possible that everything I have written here
is just crap, mental masturbation and good for nothing… for my
pride and feeling good about myself, I need to believe that what I write
here has value and is worth reading… my job sucks… and I must
believe there is some aspect of my life worth the effort… so I write here
hoping that it has some value, has some philosophical value…

I lie to myself… and continue to write…

what lies to you tell yourself?

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 12, 2018, 4:48pm

the lies we tell ourselves…those who call themselves Christians…
they claim to be followers of jesus and yet support mainstream GOP
policies…which are anti-life, anti-poor, anti-minority, anti-women and whose policies
are in favor of greed, hate, lust, anger… all of which is against the preaching
and values of jesus and the bible…I am against paying for children’s meal
and against meals on wheels and against programs which educate children because
they cost me money in taxes and by the way, I am a Christian…
if money has a higher value then lives, you are in no way, shape or form
a Christian, plain and simple…to support the anti-life policies
of the GOP and also to claim to be christian is simply lying to oneself
this is just the most brazen and obvious lie to oneself in modern America…
but there are plenty of others lies and some of these lies are communal…we
are the greatest nation on earth…we have the greatest freedom on earth…
we are the freest people on earth… and your proof of this is?
and the answer is always, well you know, everybody knows this…

in thinking about this idea I floated earlier, how do we become better people,
would you think that lying a trait that makes us better people?
is a liar a better person then a non liar? do you find lying a trait
you think is admirable? yet, we lie on a personal level, we lie to ourselves
and we lie to others and we lie in a communal group… how is that
being a better person or help create a better society?

we are in such denial about who we are and who we are
as a people that we don’t or can’t even see our lies anymore…
they are so ingrained in us that they become part of who we are,
part of how we see ourselves and how we want people to see us…
we want people to see the lies that make us appear to be better
then we are… and as a society, we do the same… we lie about
us as a country to make us appear to be better then we really are…

among them any lies we tell is the many, many conspiracies
theories that surround our lives… you see them here at ILP
in anti-Jewish and anti-women lies of several weak minded individuals
who write here quite often… but let us understand why?
why would someone court a lie like the anti-jewish conspiracies
that exist around ILP? they lie to make themselves feel better…
they lie to make themselves feel powerful, they lie because
one way to make yourself feel better is by cutting people down…
conspiracies theories aren’t much more then cries for help…
help me… I feel so badly about myself I have to create anti-Jewish
and anti-women attacks and conspiracies… and how do these conspiracies help
create better people? or a better society? it doesn’t… lies upon lies can’t help
create a better person or a better society…

lies are a mean to protect our fragile understanding of who we are…
we use lies to create an better idea of who we are instead of
actually investigating who we really are…

it is not enough for the courage of our beliefs,
we must have the courage for an attack upon our beliefs…

we must have the courage for an attack upon our beliefs, our lies
that we have… that we use to make us feel better about ourselves…

but of course people would rather live with the lies then truly
attack them… because it is easier to live with lies then
live with the truth of who we really are…
and thus we have the lies we tell ourselves and the lies/conspiracies
we tell others…

do you have the courage for an attack upon your lies, your convictions?

no, I didn’t think so…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 13, 2018, 12:45pm

we have in America, a more religious and conservative
country then any country in Europe…a liberal in America is
really a conservative in Europe…but think about the difference
between Europe and the U.S…

compared to Europe, we in America have a far greater
problems in regards to several area’s…
for example, the U.S is far more violent then Europe…
we have a real problem with violence against women,
we have a greater alcoholism problem, the murder rate in America
is far greater then in any country in Europe… but these points lead us to
ask, why?

I would suggest it is because we are more religious and conservative then
any country in Europe…every country in Europe is more liberal and
tolerant then the U.S and it shows in the fact that Europe has less violence,
less murders, less alcoholism, less violence against women, less rapes…
and the connection is the fact we are more religious and conservative…

now IQ 45 has suggested that the reason we have the sheer number of
mass killings is not due to the presence of guns but the mental illness
of people, but this argument bolsters the fact that if Europe has less violence
and less gun deaths and less rape then America because of mental illness,
then the U.S has a greater propensity to mental illness and this once again
suggest it is because the U.S is more religious and more conservative then
Europe as a whole or any individual country within Europe…

now many, even here have attack middle easterners for bringing
violence into Europe… which then helps bolster the argument for
the liberal, tolerant society that is Europe… people from the middle east,
influenced by the Koran are more religious and conservative then the
people living in Europe which once again suggest that reason for the violence
comes from the very nature of being conservative and religious…

no matter what argument you put forward for the reason for the
increased violence in America, it helps bolster the argument
for the much more peaceful and tolerant Europeans…

I would suggest that reason European countries is more peaceful then America with far
less violence, gun violence, violence against women, rapes, is because
of the fact Europe is more liberal and more tolerant…

the society where the nature is conservative and religious is
a society that is more violent and has more issues, alcoholism for example,
then a liberal, tolerant society…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 13, 2018, 1:22pm

so, I decided to research this matter even further…
picking a country at random… France…
and I am comparing France with the U.S in various categories…

Crime levels: France: 49.47… ranked 36
: U.S: 55.81… ranked 30…13% more then France…

Drugs annual cannabis use: France: 8.6% ranked 4
:U.S: 13.7% ranked 1st… 59% more then France…

Drugs Opiate use: France: 0.49% ranked 2
U.S: 0.57% ranked 3rd…

Murder rate: France: 1.31%
U.S: 5%

Rape rate: France: 16.2% ranked 21st
U.S: 27.3% ranked 9th

Total crimes: France: 3.77 million ranked 14
U.S: 11.88 million ranked 1st

Violent Crimes; murders: France: 682 ranked 37
: U.S 12,996 ranked 9th, 19 times more then France

Violent Crimes; murder rate
per million people: France: 10.54 ranked 98th
U.S: 42.01 Ranked 43, 4 times more then france…

Violent crimes; Rapes: France:10,108 ranked 5th
U.S: 84, 767 Ranked 1st… 8 times greater then France…

Violent Crimes; rape per
million people: France: 156.22 Ranked 21st
U.S: 274.04 ranked 9th…75% more then France…

and one more interesting stat:
Fear of crime: feels safe walking home France: 44.89 ranked 56…7% safer then the U.S
U.S: 41.84 ranked 60th…

so these stats tell us a story… I just picked France out of a hat… I could
have used any country…I found these stats on Nation? something like that…
anyway, country vs country France and the U.S compared…I shall look up the full
name of the site I found…

anyway, I think my case has been made…

Kropotkin

and the name of the site was NationMaster…

Peter_Kropotkin · March 17, 2018, 5:50pm

in reading Hume, I am struck by how despite the fact that Hume
bases his entire philosophy on experiences, his arguments are
of the logical, abstract, inpersonal, esoteric kind of arguments…

and that is part of his failure…there is no real world applications of
his arguments… skeptical arguments do not exists outside of this world…
they must remain here… on planet earth… grounded in our real world experiences…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 17, 2018, 7:20pm

In reading Hume (and locke before) one is faced with this idea…

their idea of how we understand both idea’s and matter is completly
wrong…

they act as if MAN was somehow turned into an adult and facing the world
for the very first time and trying to make sense of “reality”
but the fact is, we arise from children…we can never suspend, truly suspend,
our prior understanding of the world which we got from a lifetime of experiences…

in other words, Hume and Locke pretend that when we face a, say a tree,
we try to understand the tree without any notions preconceived by a lifetime
of experiences…we cannot look at that tree from the preconceived notions
of a lifetime… notions gained by a lifetime of experiences with tree’s…

I have climbed on tree’s, I have fallen off of tree’s, I have run into tree’s at full speed,
I have learned about tree’s from my parents, my schooling, the media…I cannot
in any way, shape or form, suspend my understanding of tree’s from a lifetime of
experiences with tree’s…I see a tree and I see that tree with a lifetime of
experiences with tree’s…and to call that tree a universal or particular,
ignores my lifetime of experiences with tree’s…I can never make a
calm, cool, clear subjective statement about tree’s because I have over
55 years experiences with tree’s…we cannot ever, see a tree that is free
from our experiences of tree’s…Hume and Locke assume we can understand
tree’s free of our lifetimes of experiences with tree’s…we can’t…

this is the failure of their explanation about experiences and how we understand
both idea’s and matter… we exists within our experiences and see life through
those experiences… we cannot separate ourselves from our experiences…
though Hume and Locke act as if that is what we do…we don’t…

and herein lies the problem with them… they are wrong right from the very
beginning of their explanation of how we understand experiences…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 17, 2018, 7:35pm

Hume talks about “looking” into our minds, introspection, and seeing
about such things as causality and our understanding of matter…

but when we “look” into our minds, we see a lifetime of experiences
that dictate how we understand causality for example… we learn from
a very young age about causuality… and every single day of our life is some
example of what we learn as a toddler about the notion of causality but, but
we can not make some separate, independent, isolated examination of
causuality in our minds because that understanding is tinged by a lifetime
of experiences with causality…we cannot understand causality outside of
our lifetime of experiences with causality… we exists within and are a part of
that causality we have experienced our entire life…we are defined by
and understand causality by our experience with causality…there is no understanding
of causuality without reference to our past experiences with causality…
to say if we look into our minds to understand causality and we can then, THEN,
understand causuality is bullshit of the highest order… we understand and experience
causality within and part of our entire life dealing with causuality… it cannot be separated
from us in some isolated and independent manner… it is us…

and we now see the failure of not only Hume and Locke, but of every single
philosopher, ever…I cannot explain causuality to you because my experience
of causality is different then yours and you cannot explain your idea of causality
to me because you have experience causality different then I have…

we have a common ground to understand the general, basic idea of causuality,
but not the specifics…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 17, 2018, 8:15pm

I can say, I see a tree outside of my window, I do in fact see a tree outside of my
window… now you don’t have to go look outside of your window to know what
I am talking about because you have a lifetime of experiences with trees and
you don’t need to look outside to understand my point… you get it…

now let us take another example… Einstein’s “theory of relativity”
it was once said, that only 10 people on planet earth understood it
and 9 of those were Germans… and yet today, we have millions who
understand it…what happened? what happened was simple…
the idea of relativity was not understood by the general conception
of experiences that we have… by experiences, we have learned
what the theory of relativity is and what it means… but we cannot have
an innate understanding of the theory of relativity, because there are no
experiences prior to relativity that would have allowed us to understand it…

now recall that experiences are also the act of teachings and of experiencing
the world and explanations of the world by others… we experience things via
being taught, son, that is a tree… by running into tree’s… without these
explanations, we cannot know or understand such concepts like relativity…

so, what if we to encounter something completely new, say, a
alien species came to earth and told us about their philosophy…
we couldn’t understand that philosophy because we have no prior
experiences with that philosophy… it would take human beings time to
understand an alien philosophy because it takes time for us to process and
and experience that philosophy…we couldn’t understand that philosophy
at first because we have no experience with it…

let us say, you have no prior experience…like Hume or Locke would
think…can you deduce what a piece of matter is without any prior knowledge of
that matter?

I hand you a piece of matter… what is it? as I give you clues to this
piece of matter, you may or may not be able to understand this piece of matter…

it fits into your hand… it can be moved by your hands… it is colored…
but you don’t know what color is, so you wouldn’t be able to understand that

it has a shape, but you don’t know shapes and what they mean…
you can describe it but you don’t know shapes, so how would you
describe round or square or a triangle if you don’t know shapes…

to describe something takes a lifetime of experiences to make such an
description… you have to have experiences to be able to describe something…

I could say, you are holding a wrench, but it would take prior experiences
to make sense of what a wrench is and what it does…its shape and color…
you cannot make sense of a wrench unless you have some experiences of
a wrench or some other tool to fix things…you cannot know what a wrench
is before experiences… it is not innate… and idea’s fall into this category
we cannot understand idea’s before experiences…
we experience then we understand…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 20, 2018, 4:43pm

questions we need to be asking:

what answers do we need?

is the goal of life to be… successful or loved or honored… to work…
what is the goal of life?

if you look at human beings, what do you see?
I see beings who play… we have sports, games and acting…
all of which is playing a game of some sort…and some of our
highest paid people on planet earth are people who play…
they play sports or games or act…
I would also suggest that telling a story is part of play as is
reading a book…
in fact, we could define human beings as creatures who play…

talent is someone who can hit a target no one else can hit…
Genius is someone who can hit a target that no one else can see…
so what target can’t we see?

I exist to…what do you exist for?

I belong to… what do you belong to?

what I want to know is…?

is death the end or the beginning and why do you need to believe in your answer?

Kropotkin

Meno2 · March 20, 2018, 5:13pm

Peter Kropotkin:

questions we need to be asking:

what answers do we need?

is the goal of life to be… successful or loved or honored… to work…
what is the goal of life?

if you look at human beings, what do you see?
I see beings who play… we have sports, games and acting…
all of which is playing a game of some sort…and some of our
highest paid people on planet earth are people who play…
they play sports or games or act…
I would also suggest that telling a story is part of play as is
reading a book…
in fact, we could define human beings as creatures who play…

talent is someone who can hit a target no one else can hit…
Genius is someone who can hit a target that no one else can see…
so what target can’t we see?

I exist to…what do you exist for?

I belong to… what do you belong to?

what I want to know is…?

is death the end or the beginning and why do you need to believe in your answer?

Kropotkin

Peter,
Sometimes there are answers to these types of questions, sometimes they’re left open , or remain in the unconscious store. Evolution can be said to work the magic of its working on its own goals without the presumption that we’ve got the whole nine yards in our hands.

Peter_Kropotkin · March 20, 2018, 5:54pm

and there is evolution…it is just another question in the midst
of many, many questions…

one can get lost in the pursuit of the many questions that
plague MAN…

I have tried, as much as possible, to use myself, instead of the
whole human race, to understand what questions are important…
forget answers, dam, I am still working on the questions…

but like morality, I do not exist separate, independent of everything else…
I am part of many different systems… my family, wife and daughter,
my mother and my siblings, work, living in my condo complex, my city,
and my many political AND economic systems…within each system, I exist
in some fashion…depending on the system…my role is large or very small…

we cannot account for human beings unless/until we understand both
our small individual role within ourselves and our larger role within the various
systems we each belong to… I think of it like the scientific problem of
macro systems that Newton and Einstein gave answers to, gravity, which
solved many problems like how the planets and sun and solar system and
the galaxies all worked…and the microsystems, the small, atoms
and the current quest to work out laws that connect the large-solar systems
with the small-atoms… this is the holy grail of science at the moment…
and a great analogy for human beings and the systems we belong to…

how to connect the micro-human beings… with the macro-the great
systems we see around us… the immense political and economic systems
that dominate the world at this point… we now see that
the great scientific problem matches the great political/social
problem of our age… how do we connect the small with the large?

what is the relationship between the atom and the solar system?
what is the relationship between a human being and capitalism?

we can extend this human being part to include democracy or
communism or dictatorship… whatever political or economic
structure that we must connect…at this point, I don’t think
waiting for a new understanding of evolution will help us solve this
immense problem…

we have our large understanding of the world… like gravity, in
communism and democracy and capitalism and Catholicism…

and we have our small understanding of who we are…

but to connect the two?

to connect the two requires some facet of experience that
somehow allows us to connect the two…

because it is from experience that we understand the world…

as my formula says, to understand the world, we must first experience it…

so what “law” or “laws” like the “laws of thermodynamics” would allow us to
understand our connection to the large?

and perhaps, from this lack of connection, can we attribute our host of
issues that plague human beings? such as alienation, the angst,
the fear we have, the unease of our modern age, the disconnect we
feel in regards to our modern age?

I cannot help but think that we can solve the immense personal issues
that plague us by making some sort of connection between the large
superstructures that exists in our world and the small, us, as individual
human beings…

Kropotkin

Meno2 · March 20, 2018, 6:05pm

So to connect the two, simply , try dwelling on dreams or phantasies , which may come up unintentionally. ?

Peter_Kropotkin · March 20, 2018, 6:15pm

K: I don’t know the answer… maybe dreams might be the answer, maybe experience,
maybe some third alternative? that is what I am working on…

the real key, as far as I can tell, is not the answer, but in how we ask
the question…ask the right question and maybe, maybe we might
find the right answer…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 21, 2018, 5:05pm

talent is hitting a target no one else can hit
genius is hitting a target no one can see…

so what can’t we see?

We can’t see the beginning or the end of things…

we can’t see the meaning of or the point of experience…

we can’t see values…for values aren’t material objects…

existence or experience…is about the here and now, this time and this place…

but existence/experience is influenced by and impacted by prior existence/
prior experience…events and people and material goods created in the past
still exists today…we see the past in our buildings, our language, our body types,
who we are, in our very name we see past existence, past experience…

the key to understanding life lies not in our understanding of
concepts or in subjects in school like history or English…
but in understanding existence/experience…

what does it mean to exist? what does it mean to experience?

throw all the rest away and focus on this one point…
I exist today… that is all I can know for sure…
I exist right here, right now… I can’t be sure about anything else…
but to exist today, as a biological being means I have a past, a past
that extends into the very beginning of biological existence…

experience or evolution is an extension into the past where
we can trace the biological beings that created me and this moment
into the distant past…back to 3 billion years ago, when life, however it started,
started… we can trace us as biological beings back 3 billion years…
we are the latest in experiences or evolution, not the culmination, but
the latest of…life is simply about existence…
life is about experience… life is evolution…
and all three words, existence, experience, evolution…
are simply three words that mean the same thing…

as a biological being, I am existence, I am experiences, I am evolution…
and my existence, my experiences and my role in evolution
goes on into the future…and I cannot see that either…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 23, 2018, 4:17pm

still working on things we cannot see…

Political philosophy is based on the study of politics, liberty,
justice, property, rights, laws and the enforcement of laws by
authority, what laws are and why they are needed, what, if anything,
makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and
why, what forms should it take, what the laws are, what duties citizens
owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately
be overthrown, if ever…

I think these questions, while important, misses the real point…

and the point lies in the very title, political philosophy…
philosophy is the understanding of values…
so what values are important in a political sense?

and the second “miss” is this, what is the role of the individual
in a civics sense… in other words, what is the relationship between
the government and the individual citizen?

our understanding of this relationship does not stem from
our understanding of the economic…in other words,
our economic system, capitalism, the attitude of laissez-faire,
doesn’t play into our understanding of the relationship between
the government and the individual citizen…

to have a laissez-faire attitude from its citizens to its government
is not an acceptable attitude from it citizens to the government…
for a government to be successful, it must have active, engaged, willing,
participation from its citizens…it could be argued that the Soviet Union,
failed because it was a top down government and its citizens didn’t or
weren’t allowed to engaged or be active within the governmental process
of deciding policy…the U.S has succeeded because its citizens
have been active, engaged and willing participants in government and
the governmental process in deciding policy…

a laissez-faire attitude from its citizen’s about the government and
its actions will lead to the failure of that government… that is the first
point to remember…

the second point is about values and the political process…
this is where philosophy can aid in the political process…

what values are important in the relationship between
a government and its citizens?

as we understand that a society where the citizens react
to the government with a laissez-faire attitude will fail,
we must have active, engaged, willing participation
by its citizens, so to allow the citizens all the knowledge needed
to make participation effective, we must have open, transparent
government…to prevent citizens from having knowledge
of governmental actions and policy, means the citizen
cannot make an honest engagement with the government…

hiding the truth prevents someone from being able to make
choices about governmental actions and policy…

if in playing a game of chess and I am unable to know
my opponent’s move, how can I make good moves?

I can’t… the key to making decisions, any decision, is to have
all the facts, all the knowledge necessary to make an intelligent
choice and by the government hiding information prevents that…

so, a value we need from government is transparency and openness…
honesty is a value we must have from government to better allow
citizens to make “good” moves…

the key phrase is
“government of the people, for the people, by the people”

either that is true and we must, must have more inclusion of the people,
for the people, by the people in government or we risk failure of the government
as the failure of the Soviet Union shows us…

so one of the key understanding of the political is the
inclusion of philosophy into the political as we must
begin any thought or action to be taken in terms
of values… what values do we want to express
by governmental actions and by governmental policy?

do we want to express values like hate, anger, violence,
bigotry in our governmental actions and policy or
do we want to express values like love, hope, honesty,
peace, charity in our governmental actions and policy?

decide on which values we want to express and we effectively
decide governmental action and policy…

do we follow anger and fear by governmental actions
and policy with say, an increase of the already massive defensive
budget or do we express values like peace and love with an equally
impressive increase in our social budget…

and in this we return to an earlier point, which is
what value is more important, security or freedom?

and we now can express values in terms of governmental
actions and policies by asking, is it security we are focusing on
or is it freedom… with our governmental actions and policy…

which values are we going to support as citizens?

political philosophy is really about which values we should
and must support… and so, political philosophy is about values
and values is philosophy…

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 23, 2018, 5:01pm

conservatives hold security as the primary goal and
interest of government…security as in a strong defense
force in the world… to “protect” us in an insecure world…

the liberal ask, what is the point of a strong defense if
we don’t allow such values as freedom and the right to
our “inalienable rights” as defined by the declaration …
“the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
and those “inalienable rights” have been extended by generations
of Americans to include the right to the essential
necessities of life which include food, water, shelter and healthcare
and education…

the conservative considers those essential rights of life of food, water,
shelter… as to be of less importance then the right to security…
as they, conservatives, have pursued a public policy of increased
“security” spending over increased essential necessities like food and water…

this is self evident by their spending bills of conservative congresses
and presidents…in the last spending bill, they cut social services
and increased defense spending… those actions tell us the values
that conservatives hold…safety/security over freedom or the essential rights of man
as defined by the declaration…so which values should we hold?

now the second point of understanding political philosophy is
what is the role of the individual within society/government?

it has been said that political philosophy is really about two things
and two things only… who is in charge and who pays for things…
that is all political philosophy is engaged with… who is in charge,
who makes the decisions and then who pays for those decisions…

but nowhere in this cynical viewpoint of political philosophy
is any commentary or concern about values and which values
should, we as a society or government hold?
and that includes which values we as individuals should hold in
regards to governmental actions or policy…

in which lies my second point, which values should we as individuals
should hold and engage with politically?

the oath of the President states: “he” will to the best of his ability,
preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States"

this lead us to an interesting conclusion about this oath…
it doesn’t say, to "defend the United States… no, it says the constitution
of the United States…the constitution is a continuation of the
“declaration of independence” which is a document about values…

which values shall we uphold…and what is the role of the
individual citizen in our government…

as government and political policy seems to be about values…
is the same to be said about our economic system?

Kropotkin

Peter_Kropotkin · March 23, 2018, 8:40pm

Peter Kropotkin:conservatives hold security as the primary goal and
interest of government…security as in a strong defense
force in the world… to “protect” us in an insecure world…