Are governments just protection rackets for the 1%?

Yet you offer no alternative.

Regards
DL

That’s because there is nothing worth preserving in that there is nothing to reform.

Yes there is if you follow the thinking of Socrates.

Look up Timocratic system and see that what follows what we have should be followed by that as it is a ruling system based on honor and duty. Something lacking in how we rule today.

Regards
DL

Yeah, that worked so well for the ancient Greeks. Where is modern Greece now?

They never got to the point of creating a Timocratic system as far as I know.

Regards
DL

And why do you think that is? Why was it never created?

Democracy was a better way for the leaders to lie to their people.

The same applies today.

Regards
DL

I am no fan of democracy especially the controlled kind that we have here where you’ll get no argument from me on that.

Timocracy:

In other words an aristocracy. The United States has its own aristocracy and they’re all politically,socially, or economically inept.

Democracy was a better way for the leaders to lie to their people.

The same applies today.

Regards
DL
[/quote]
I am no fan of democracy especially the controlled kind that we have here where you’ll get no argument from me on that.
[/quote]
Respect grows.

Regards
DL

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes

The aristocratic man is better represented by Plato’s brand of philosopher: a man whose character and ambitions have been forged into those ideal for a just ruler through a rigorous education system designed to train intellectuals that are selfless and upright, and whose souls have been made calm and aware of the absolute Good by learning the Truth based on the Platonic Ideas. Plato envisages for this philosopher a disposition and ability that makes him the ideal governor of any state precisely because his soul knows the Idea of the Good, which is the metaphysical origin of all that is good, including happiness itself. Wealth, fame, and power are just shadows of the Good and provide only hollow and fleeting satisfaction. It is only the knowledge of the Good in itself that gives man enduring and real happiness. Thus, the philosopher who is exposed to metaphysical contemplation is not tempted to abuse his power in his pursuit of material goods, and his state policies are therefore dedicated to establishing only the Good in the state, not his personal interests.

Regards
DL

I agree. Please see my last post above.

Regards
DL

In any day and age the extent to which folks are impotent revolves by and large around the extent to which they believe that they are. For the objectivists however those who do not share their own political prejudices regarding either 1] the role of government or 2] the manner in which governments reflect the nature of political economy, may or may not in fact be impotent. But what counts far, far more is their rabid conviction that they ought to be.

Yet both sides are able to formulate reasonable arguments in defending either political narrative: debate.org/debates/Conservat … -nation/1/

Provided of course the fiercest ideologues here can agree on precisely what it means to be a true liberal or a true conservative. And [it goes without saying] leaving out the stuff that folks like Marx and Engels tacked onto the debate.

Again, from my frame of mind, the focus here revolves less around determining [either empirically or in terms of political philosophy] who is more rational or more virtuous, and more in acknowledging the role that dasein, conflicting goods and political economy play in the actual formation of any one particular individual’s set of values.

And this part above all else is where the objectivists [at both extremes] fear to tread.

Or so it surely seems to me.

What will dasein do for ongoing market melt ups around the world, stagnant wages, and tell me about the price of tea in China?

An aristocracy or oligarchy (degenerated aristocracy). Both are two “sides of the same coin”.

Yes.

I almost want to bring the divine rights of kings back as a smart one would know how to reign in on an out of control aristocracy through public executions. Plato referred to this as the intelligent philosopher king. Makes me want to become a neo monarchist now. If the king or his paternal lineage got out of line you killed them supplanting with another king where the crowds would say, the king is dead, long live the king.

One thing is for certain, it will take a lot of body bags to clear up the corruption of both modern aristocracies and governments. If such a fate comes within our time I look forward to many public executions and people hanging from lamp posts. The rot within modern societies are deep and pervasive where the only way to clear it out is by cutting at its roots.

Better to depose than kill.

Kings are hereditary positions. These days, and with the size of governments, better to have the well educated in governance compete for the job.

No death is required if the public will pushes the political will to implement such a competition.

The public will likely have to revolt though before it can make it’s owners come to heel. That could even be a tax revolt so we need not just look to killing.

Regards
DL

Again, my understanding of dasein here revolves entirely around the extent to which others understand the gist of my argument here:

[b]a man amidst mankind…

That is the paradox, right? I am an individual…a man; yet, in turn, I am but one of 6,500,000,000 additional men and women that constitutes what is commonly called “mankind”. So, in what sense can I, as an individual, grasp my identity as separate and distinct from mankind? How do I make intelligent distinctions between my personal, psychological “self” [the me “I” know intimately from day to day], my persona [the me “I” project – often as a chameleon – in conflicting interactions with others], and my historical and ethnological self as a white male who happened adventiously to be born and raised to view reality from the perpective of a 20th century United States citizen?

How does all of this coalesce into who I think I am? And how does this description contrast with how others grasp who they think I am? Is there a way to derive an objective rendering of my true self? Can I know objectively who I am?

No, I don’t think so.

Identity is ever constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over the years by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of variables—some of which we had/have no choice/control regarding. We really are “thrown” into a fortuitous smorgasbord of demographic factors at birth and then molded and manipulated as children into whatever configuration of “reality” suits the cultural [and political] institutions of our time.

On the other hand:

In my view, one crucial difference between people is the extent to which they become more or less self-conscious of this. Why? Because, obviously, to the extent that they do, they can attempt to deconstruct the past and then reconstruct the future into one of their own more autonomous making.

But then what does this really mean? That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my “self” is, what can “I” do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknowledging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we “anchor” our identity to so as to make this prefabricated…fabricated…refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.

Is it any wonder that so many invent foundationalist anchors like Gods and Reason and Truth? Scriptures from one vantage point or another. Anything to keep from acknowledging just how contingent, precarious, uncertain and ultimately meaningless our lives really are.

Or, of course, is that just my foundation?[/b]

As this, in turn, is reflected in both liberal and conservative narratives [political prejudices] regarding the nature of government in our lives. And of those rabid conflicts regarding what the role of government ought to be.

Folks like PK on the left and uccisore on the right seem intent on arguing from what I construe to be an objectivist frame of mind.

And to the extent I interject dasein into these debates, it revolves around that part of “I” which passes judgment on the behaviors of others — as either more or less in sync with behaviors it is said that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to embody.

In other words, in order to qualify as one of the good guys: “one of us”.