a new understanding of today, time and space.

and in the grand scheme of things…

to go out of control isn’t that bad… it is the equation that
must be kept…… in other words, the balance of our actions must
remain equal… the equation must be kept…

so if we go hog wild and get drunk… that is fine,
as long as the life equation is kept going…

it is not about the one or two night of drinking oneself silly that is
important… it is the many nights of balance that matters…

the overall balance must be kept…

we can forgive an occasional high or low…
it is the overall balance that must be maintained…

one night of debauchery can be forgotten or forgiven…
if, if we hold the rest of our time in balance…

I have said this many different ways to impress upon you the importance
of one’s balance in life… the high’s and lows are less important
then the = sign…

I am old and one night of drinking and I will suffer long for it…
the balance is automatically maintained…… I cannot go out of
the balance if I even wanted to because of the immediate
consequences that I will suffer from going too high or too low…

when I was young… I didn’t suffer immediate consequences from my actions,
which lead me to believe that I could act outside of the equation and not suffer from it…

but that is false… I still suffer I just missed it or I dismissed it as unimportant…

what happens if we go outside of the equation is referred to as
consequences… and those consequences are part of the laws of
thermodynamics… for every action, there is an equal and opposite
reaction……. we humans do not exists outside of the laws of physics…

we are not exempt from those laws…as those laws exists for us individually,
they also exists for us collectively… if we go outside the bounds of
the collective equation, we will suffer… we will face consequences…

if the government mistreats its citizens badly, maybe not today and maybe
not tomorrow, but at some point the government will suffer the consequences…
it will suffer… the basic laws of physics…

if you want to not suffer the laws of consequences of being evil,
then one must be good… the laws of physics demand that we
engage in both individual and collective behavior of treating people
with decency and respect…people respond to goodness with goodness…

and one might say, Kropotkin, you said equal and opposite reaction…
thus if you treat people good, they will treat you badly… equal and opposite…
but have you tried to treat people with honesty and respect?

in my experience, people react much better to being treated good
then to be treated badly…

you get a better response from people if you treat them like they
are human beings, then if you treat them like crap…

and if they don’t Kropotkin? what if I treat someone with respect
and they mistreat me? my, my why are we so worried about what other’s
might think or do? the best you can do is treat people with decency and
respect… if they don’t equal that, that isn’t your problem…
you can feel good about your actions and what you did…

the equation still remains if you treat people from and with goodness…

if they chose to break the equation, that isn’t your problem…

you can hold your head high if you treat other’s decently…

regardless of how they treat you back…

the equation of treating people well, will still remain the same…

don’t mistake maybe and might and could be with some sort of
reality that exists… maybe and might and could be simple
possible futures…

and not known until you take some action………

so hold to the equation… and treat people with respect and decency
and as human beings…

you will feel better about yourself for it…

Kropotkin

X + 13 = 20

So what is X?

We know the answer to be 7

take the 13, move it to the other side, -13 so 20 - 13 = 7

this is your basic equation…

the two sides are equal…

13 + 7 = 20

they say the same thing…

another equation is energy = mass or energy = matter…

the two sides are equal…

and this is true of all of life… the two sides must be equal…

so we have another aspect…

we have individuals and we have the collective…

if we have individuals on one side and the collective on the other side,
then the two sides must be equal…

individual = the collective or the society if you will…

so what does an equal society look like?

well, we know that to be equal, all parties must be treated equally…

for that is the essence of equality/justice…

if some are treated unequally, either the wealthy are treated better
and/or the poor minorities are treated worse, then the equation is
off… it is not equal…and thus we have inequality in our equation…

enough inequality within the system and the system itself collapses…

a math problem must be equal for it to be of use…

1 + 1 = 2… this can only be of use if it is equal…

1 + 1 = 4… is an unequal equation and thus worthless…

a society must be equal for it to survive…
if it is unequal, then at some point, the society
will collapse…the weight on one side or the other,
will throw the system off balance…

if the society overwhelms the individuals, then the weight
of the society will throw the system off balance… it will collapse…

or if the individuals overwhelm the society, then the systems collapses…

so we must engage with keeping the system balanced as we must keep
the individuals within that system balanced…

think about it… we struggle with the work/life balance all the time…

if too much time is spent at work, we lose our balance in life…

if we don’t drink enough water, we lose our inner balance that is maintained
by drinking enough water…

if we need individual balance, we must replace that inequality with something
that will hold the balance in our lives…….

lacking nutrients, then we take a supplement to recover that balance…

seeking individual balance is one of the task of modern life

and so should seeking balance between individuals and society is another
balance we must seek……

Kropotkin

Okay, here’s another fact: that not a single one of us here on earth was born without first having been that clump of cells. And a new born baby cannot survive on its own, right?

No, from my frame of mind, once conceived the unborn are just step by necessary step from being like all the rest of us.

Others, of course, use different demarcations here: beating heart, brain waves, viability outside the womb. And, if that works for them, then it becomes the bottom line. Besides, there is always the argument that men have no right to an opinion at all here because only women are confronted with the wrenching reality of actually dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.

But: how on earth would any of these positions be demonstrated as [objectively] reflecting the optimal or the only rational point of view? In a No God world.

Then comes the part that I describe as being “rooted in dasein”:

This encompasses your own unique “story” as dasein. And [from my perspective] it’s not a question of whether your mother did the right thing or the wrong thing. But that what she chose to do was in turn rooted in her own existential “I”.

Today we have any number of contexts in which doctors are able to diagnose afflictions that the unborn will have if the mother chooses to give birth. To abort or not to abort? So, what can philosophers and ethicists agree about here in regard to each situation? How are these decisions not rooted existentially in the individual “I”?

That’s always my point. And, in regard to abortion, my own “I” here is encompassed on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

And then from my own frame of mind – no less an existential contraption rooted in dasein – you go back up into the realm of the “general description intellectual contraptions”:

But: don’t the conservatives have their own rendition of this? Only they start with the assumption that none of this can come about [given either a liberal or a conservative political agenda] if the babies are shredded and then flushed away.

The part which from their point of view you just completely ignore:

If you can’t even imagine how many conservatives would be appalled, aghast, outraged by an argument of this sort, then at least I suspect that they cannot even imagine how liberals would be appalled, aghast and outraged at their own arguments in turn.

But at least most liberals and conservatives are not “fractured and fragmented” when confronting abortion. At least they have the comfort and the consolation of knowing that they are on the right side of the issue.

so IQ45 and his followers seek hate and anger and lust,
the seven deadly sins, along with intolerance, bigotry to name a few more
negative instincts…

that is bringing society out of balance…

what can we do to bring society back into balance?

by holding to the values of tolerance and love and peace…

if the GOP advocates violence and hatred, we must advocate
peace and love to maintain the balance of society…

the American society has long been an advocate of martial values…
and what are martial values? hostility, aggressive, combative,
belligerence, war like… who do we proclaim to be the hero’s of society?

the troops, the soldiers… I see ads on TV all the time, thanking the troops
for their sacrifice and service………. but we don’t put ads thanking the
advocates of peace, the ones who want us to give peace a chance…

so, to hold the balance of the society, we must advocate peace, love,
non-violence…to keep our society, we must think in terms of the
equation that society needs to hold it together…

peace = war…

the two sides must be equal or the society collapses…

simple as that…

we must hold the balance between the various forces in life
and within society and within ourselves…

we wonder about what happen in modern society?

we lost the balance that society held for thousands of years…

with the introduction of capitalism and the industrial age, we no longer
have the balance between the various forces in life…

that is why we are disconnected, alienated from life, society and each other…

how do we recover the balance that we individually and collectively need?

see what life was before capitalism and before the industrial revolution…

we were a rural, agricultural based society… and what was the focus of
that society? the slow movement of time based on the seasons and not
on the time clock… part of the disconnection within society has been
the introduction of modern time within society…

time is money… in our modern world, but time isn’t money in the world
before the industrial revolution…

am I advocating a return to the world before the industrial revolution,
like Rousseau? no, not at all… I am simply pointing out that we must return
to balance…and what is the new balance in our lives?

that is what we must discover…….

if our society is anti-peace and against art and beauty…
then to recover our balance, we must stand for peace
and art and beauty… to balance out the society…

balance is the key……

and maintaining the equation…

it is always about the equation…

Kropotkin

K: as I am now working off of my
iPad because my computer died. So this isn’t going
to be pretty, so hang in there.

The problem I see with your philosophy is
The inability to connect the individuals philosophy
with any type of collective philosophy. If everyone was as fractured as you, we couldn’t even be
able to hold any type of collective discourse.
People would be so caught up in their own
individual “existential contraption” that collective
discourse would become impossible. Your
philosophy is a roadmap to solipsism.
And as much fun as that sounds, uh no.

The human question we face is as much a
individual one as a collective one. Whatever individual answer we find, must fit
Into the overall, collective answer we seek.

It is not about me, but about we. And in to
get to some collective understanding about who
we are, we have to sort out our individual
Questions.

I am a man, a liberal, philosopher, married,
American, heterosexual, Californian, atheist.

Each of these “labels” have an individual aspect
And a collective aspect.

And each to make sense, must have a collective
aspect along with the individual aspect.

This is why philosophies like Stirner failed.
As human beings, we are, for better or worse,
connected to each other. We cannot dismiss
a million years of biology and evolution to
turn away from each other. All philosophy at
some point must come to grasp with both
our individual self IN connection to
our collective self. What is your collective
answer to the human condition?

Kropotkin

K: as I am now working off of my
iPad because my computer died. So this isn’t going
to be pretty, so hang in there.

The problem I see with your philosophy is
The inability to connect the individuals philosophy
with any type of collective philosophy. If everyone was as fractured as you, we couldn’t even be
able to hold any type of collective discourse.
People would be so caught up in their own
individual “existential contraption” that collective
discourse would become impossible. Your
philosophy is a roadmap to solipsism.
And as much fun as that sounds, uh no.

The human question we face is as much a
individual one as a collective one. Whatever individual answer we find, must fit
Into the overall, collective answer we seek.

It is not about me, but about we. And in to
get to some collective understanding about who
we are, we have to sort out our individual
Questions.

I am a man, a liberal, philosopher, married,
American, heterosexual, Californian, atheist.

Each of these “labels” have an individual aspect
And a collective aspect.

And each to make sense, must have a collective
aspect along with the individual aspect.

This is why philosophies like Stirner failed.
As human beings, we are, for better or worse,
connected to each other. We cannot dismiss
a million years of biology and evolution to
turn away from each other. All philosophy at
some point must come to grasp with both
our individual self IN connection to
our collective self. What is your collective
answer to the human condition?

Kropotkin

Double post sorry

double post

Yah you know. Double post

Still on iPad.

This question of an equation, is best found
during the years between 1850 and 1900.

You have the rise of capitalism and the industrial
Revolution. With this rise came another rise, the
rise of both anarchism and socialism. These
Two ideologies rose as part of the equal and opposite
reaction to the industrial revolution and capitalism.

Then again during the Great Depression, around the world,
both communism and socialism rose in response
to the clear and obvious failure of capitalism,
and the industrial revolution.

History is full of reactions to events, Equal and
opposite reactions. The British tried to get
the Americas to pay taxes and the end result
was the war of Independence. Much of history
is this push and pull of actions and responses
to these actions.
History properly understood is the understanding of actions and reactions to these actions.

Not only our collective history is actions and
reaction but individually. Much of our own
personal reactions to the world is reactions to
actions. Parents tell their children not to smoke or
not to steal or not to do drugs or have sex, and
the next thing we did was to do one or more of
these “forbidden” things, equal and opposite
reaction.

So among your actions and/or beliefs are the reactions to someone else actions or reactions?

What do you hold to be true as a response to
another’s actions or reaction?

It could be argued that all human responses are
basically from us in reaction to someone or something else?

We can see that every action right now is
either in response to the virus or is response to the
political response to the virus.

So those protesting the political response to the
Virus, are reacting, the equal and opposite response
to the virus and the political response to the virus.

So how did you respond to the virus or the
political response to the virus?

Was your response an equal and opposite to
the current situation?

Kropotkin

If we could discover a rational
moral principle, I.E a definitive
demand upon our Behavior made
by reason, not by our biological
or psychological impulses or
desires or urges, as noted by Kant.

Our morality and laws are designed to
curb our urges, desires, needs both physical
and psychology.

“Thou shall not” is aimed at those
urges and desires that plague us.

But we also have needs, and the law
also forbids us from meeting those which
keeps us alive. To eat when no other choice
is possible, we turn to a violation of morality
and the law. We steal bread. To meet a basic
biological need of ours or to feed our children.

So ask yourself, what is the greater crime,
For a person to steal bread from another or
for a person to starve in the midst of plenty?

If you say stealing, then you believe
in property before people’s lives. Is property,
material goods really a higher priority before
peoples lives?

At this point I don’t see how we can create
a completely rational morals principles.

Morality and the laws are designed to
protect property and to punish desires
and urges and even needs like hunger.

But our morality and laws are a failure
if they don’t react or a person or a child
who is starving as against the laws or morality.

In other words, it is just as immoral for
a person to starve as it is to steal. Ours
laws and our morality must condemn
society that allows a starving person
As it does a thief.

If we don’t meet the basic biological needs
of our citizens with as much codemnation
as we treat stealing, then property has more
value then a starving person. Is that a Christian
message we want to send?

If there are starving people, then we are
not “pro-life”. For we must connect our words
with our actions. For this is the true meaning
morality. We hold to the basic premise that
meeting our basic physical needs of food,
water, shelter, education and health care,
meeting those needs is what being moral means.

Morality has a collective value of meeting the
needs of the society and the individual with
that society.

What moral action have you taken toward
your fellow human beings?

Kropotkin

We have private, individual, morality, apart from
our collective, society morality. I have my
own private set of values that I will not
depart from…I don’t hit women or children,
I won’t steal from someone, I don’t commit acts
of violence, my base from which I start from
is peace… I understand that other people
are like me… To commit violence or to
denigrate people is to devalue or dehumanize
other people. To act with the certainty that others
have the same rights and values as I do. They are
human too. Justice, to treat people with justice
is to engage with people with equality. We all exists
on the same plain, no higher or lower, equal.

We all have, because we are the same…human,
the same biological needs and the same desires,
and the goal of achieving our possibilities…
now my possibilities are different then your
possibilities. I do not have the possibilities as
you because I have different abilities and
talents and different education and bodily
differences like my hearing loss.
Our differences means our possibilities are
different.

But those differences don’t make us any less
human, just different.

IQ45 has publicly said that “illegal aliens are
subhuman”

He is negating, dehumanizing others…
And that is wrong, immoral, because it
does negate, dehumanizing human beings.

He does so on the basis of an “us” versus “them”,
ideology… If you are not “us”, then you are
less then me and my chosen group.
That is not equality nor is it justice.
That is the problem with an “us” vs “them”
understanding… In my own private values,
I reject an “us” vs “them” because it creates
an artificial divide between people and other
people, groups, nationalities, religions, genders,
and the color of one’s skin.

I don’t accept the concept of looking at people
via their differences. We should see people based
on their sameness, their similarities, their closeness
to who I am… My affinity to others lies in
our similar needs, our similar desires, our
similar goals of achieving our possibilities…

As long as we see other people as “other”,
we cannot achieve our own goal.

For the bottom line of human existence is the
undeniable fact that because of biology and
evolution, we are social creatures, bound to
each other, for education, for meeting our
basic needs, for satisfying our desires, for
the goal of achieving our possibilities…

My own personal goals and values are tied up
into our collective goals and values.

I do not and cannot act individually for I am
bound to the collective, we call human beings.

And whatever values I deem to be mine, must
have an collective nature…

To be technically correct, there is no you or me,
there is only us.

Kropotkin

You might say, I must achieve or meet my
needs. I must achieve the bottom, basic
needs of being human. I need food, water,
shelter, education, health care, to name some
of the bodily needs that all humans have.
But you cannot, cannot achieve these needs
by yourself. Without other people, we cannot
meet our basic needs. You might say, I desire love,
but love and those other basic needs of esteem
and security/safety, cannot happen without others.

Your desires can only be fulfilled in others,
as with esteem and safety/security and belonging.
Your needs, desires, urges can only be met
within a collective, not individually…

Only in others can your needs, desires, urges ever
get fulfilled. That is the legacy of our biology and
our evolution. We need others to meet our needs
and desires.

And here lies why we must treat others with
value and virtue. Because we need them.
We cannot reach who we are without their help.

Or to be blunt, why should I help you if you
are a dick to me?

And here lies the course of our laws and morality.

It is in our own self interest to seek justice being
done. It is within our own self interest to seek
equality because within equality, we can meet
our own needs and desires. If I am not treated
equally, what is my incentive to help you achieve
your needs and desires?

This new viewpoint requires us to rethink
our current values and reevaluate what it means
to be human.

Can you achieve your needs and desires without
others?

Good luck with that…

Kropotkin

As a human being, I can only exist in
relation to others. As Kropotkin, I cannot
exist in isolation to others. Every single aspect
of my existence is determined by others.

I do not grow my own food and my electricity
is done by others and my education was
done in schools and I am protected by
both the police and fire departments…

I cannot be who I am without others…
that is simply a statement of fact.

So what does that mean politically?

What is true of us individually, that we cannot
exist without others, is true collectively…

In other words, the collective cannot survive
without me…

Think of it this way, the Roman Empire fell
because the average individual was negated,
Dehumanized by the Roman state. This led
the average citizen to simply take their energy
away from the continuation of the state to the
promise of Christianity… Why engage in a state
that brings me no value? What is in it for me to
continue the Roman Empire? Truth be told,
there was no value for the average citizen
to hold to the Roman Empire. The empire didn’t
meet any of the needs that an average
person had. The state couldn’t protect or
feed or secure the rights of the average person
in the Roman Empire. In any state where it’s
everyone for themselves, is a state that will
lose the allegiance of its citizens…

If the theory of rugged individualism were true,
there would no point to having a state…

So what should a state hold to?

What are the basic requirements of the state?

What values should the state hold?

Kropotkin

A state must hold to certain ideas…

One: we are dependent on each other to
reach our needs and desires and urges.
I cannot achieve my needs of food, water,
shelter, education, health care by myself.
And I cannot reach my desires and urges by
myself. The desires of love and esteem and
security and belonging are achieved though
others.

If I want to achieve my needs and desires, I
need the help of others. And if you want
to reach your needs and desires, you
need my help. The current path of an
adversarial relationship between people and/or
the state, prevents me from achieving my needs
and desires and it prevents you from achieving
your needs and desires. It is only in the give and
take of relationships that will allow both of
us to reach our goals…if you support me in
my goal of going to school and being educated, and
I will support your goal of meeting your goals,
of having your needs met. This can work because
our goals and needs are different from each other.
My needs and goals at 61 are vastly different
then they were at 21 or 31 or 41…

The current conservative viewpoint of, I have
mine, fuck you and your attempts to meet
your needs and desires… Cannot hold because
it devalues and negates your needs and desires…
Why should I engage if only your values and needs
are met?

What is my incentive to work with you?

Much of our current political and social
dysfunction is caused by our egotistical
belief that I have mine and so, fuck you.

And we will continue to be plague
by dysfunction until we learn to work with
each other in an honest attempt to achieve our
respective needs and goals, with each other.

So we begin by asking, what is the value/point
of government? We answer that by an honest
understanding of our own understanding of
what it means to be human?

We are social creatures, that can exist and
meet our needs and desires by working with
each other. I cannot achieve anything by
myself, I need you as you need me.

So government is the engagement of
people working together to met our
own needs and desires. You scratch my back,
and I scratch your back…this is what the real
meaning of the phrase: government of the
people, for the people and by the people, means.

A selfish person will in the end, wind up
without their needs being met because I see no reason to help or aid a person who won’t
help or aid me. It is only by honest cooperation
that our needs and desires will be met.

Kropotkin

The question of equality is found in
a proper understanding of evolution…

It can be compared to the equailzation of
the earth due to the revolution caused by
the Copernican revolution…

Where is up and down in reference to
evolution? Can we say that this person
or that person is “superior” given the
implications of evolution?

I might have a talent you don’t but you might
have an talent I don’t have, and how do
we understand “superiority” given
talent is due to nothing more then random
acts of the mixing of cells that created you or
me. My parents had a modest bit of athleticism,
and I was the kid in my family who inherited it…
It was random who got the athleticism and
who didn’t… I cannot make any claims of
superiority given the random nature of any
skills or talents I may have received.

Should I claim any type of superiority
given the randomness of evolution.

So given the equality of evolution, can we deny
equality as a primary facet of existence?

Kropotkin

But Kropotkin, how can you deny the superiority of people?

You see one person’s superiority over another all the time…

and on which superiority should we deem as the “most” superior?

Intelligence or strength or wit or money or speed or ability to lift weights?

to claim the intelligent man is the “superior” man is to highlight something
that is as random as any other feature we might have…

is looks the “superior” feature we should proclaim as the “superior”
feature?

how would one be able to judge which feature is the superior one?

I for one, am unable to make some judgement as to which feature, looks, intelligence,
strength, eyesight, wit or money is the “superior” one…

to proclaim one man superior over another requires some judgement as to what
is “superior”… is the “ubermensch” really a superior person? depends on
which criteria one uses…

it makes more sense to see every human being as equal, then try to interpose
some utterly random feature which can be defined as “superior”…

this is true of an individual and is true collectively…

the Nazi’s proclaimed themselves “superior” based on claims that
cannot be proven…the Greeks felt themselves “superior” to others…
their word for non-Greek was “Barbarian” an uncivilized and brutal person.
another definition is unsophisticated or uncivilized…foreign or rude…

From what basis did IQ45 proclaim those from Mexico as “Subhuman”…
and immigrant gangs as “animals”…when we can, from another standpoint,
call IQ45 a “barbarian” an uncivilized or brutal, unsophisticated person…

one can compare IQ45 to Obama and then we can clearly call IQ45 a
“Barbarian”…

comparing and contrasting depends on who we are comparing and contrasting…
and what criteria we use…

the question of equality comes from the fact that we have no way to
understand what is “superior” based on evolution because evolution
is random and chaotic…it doesn’t have a goal…it just is…

and we are, because of evolution, social creatures that must engage
with others because we are unable to deal with our needs and desires
by ourselves… we need others to fill our needs and desires…

the entire question of social, political, economic and philosophical is
one of, how do we fulfill our needs and desires?

and if our needs and desires are equal, then the process to
achieve our needs and desires also need to be equal…

hence a democracy is best for us… it is a means best suited to
reach our goal of meeting our needs and desires equally…

that is politically, economically however, capitalism is not the best
method to reach equality for us, economically…

communism or socialism is clearly better for us to reach
our needs equally…without giving preference to any one group
or person…

and that is the key… to avoid giving preference to one or many…
justice is another word for equality…

we must practice the art of meeting our needs with equality and justice…

Kropotkin

On the contrary, down through the ages any particular “I” has been “connected” to any number of historical, cultural and experiential “collective philosophies.” Including assessments of what life means, religious beliefs, moral narratives, political agendas. Customs, folkways, mores.

And we can sustain a discussion like this because there are any number of variables embedded in human interactions that unfold in the either/or world. Even in regard to conflicting moral and political goods there are facts that can be ascertained. Facts that, for example, defend and sustain keeping social distancing policies. Facts that defend and sustain opening up the economy. Facts used to support the unborn babies right to life. Facts used to support the pregnant woman’s right to choose. Facts for and against a citizens right to bear arms. And on and on and on.

My distinction here is between the moral objectivists and the moral nihilists. Given a particulat context relating to particular behaviors in conflict. Given the manner in which I construe this as the embodiment of dasein. Instead, in my view, you almost always avoid that. At least with me.

This sort of thing…

Yes, and others, in completely different sets of circumstances, supporting completely different political prejudices, can basically say the same thing. That’s the part I attribute to dasein. The part that revolves around this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

What I then do [over and over and over again] in exchanges of this sort is to ask others how this is not applicable to them…in regard to their own value judgments.

Given a particular context.

And, in regard to “a man in the midst of mankind”, the points I raise on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Again, how is this not applicable to the “I” of others given a particular social, political or economic “situation” likely to be familiar to most of us here.

What would be of most interest to me here is if someone who embraced Stirner’s philosophy would engage in a discussion with you in regard to actual human interactions that precipitated opposing political agendas.

Any takers?

The role of government is twofold, the first
is to oversee how our needs are met and
the second is arbitrate between two conflicting
needs. To arbitrate is to set limits in regards
to our needs and desires and urges.

We cannot allow needs and desires and urges
of one, some, few or many to disrupt or
endanger the balance of our systems, be it
political, social or economic. Excessive pursuit
of our needs, desires, urges throws the
system out of balance.

As I have noted before, the desire of the right
wing/ prolife movement is “ad hoc” because
it isn’t followed consistently. Pro-lifers hold
contradicting beliefs in regard to life.

They favor such anti-life propositions as the
Death penalty, allowing the police to use
fatal/ excessive force to defend themselves,
to abandon the child’s right to exist by
denying such programs as WIC and SNAP.
To force children to be born and then deny
the parents the means to feed children. That
is not pro-life. Another anti-life belief is
the notion that guns and violence is an answer
to what threatens you. If you own a gun,
you are advocating violence and the threat of
violence as an solution to some problem…

Let us be clear, violence and the threat of violence,
is not pro-life. But you might say, I “need”
a gun to protect my life and my family’s life.
This fear and paranoia doesn’t change the fact
that the odds of some violence occurring to you
or your family is extremely low. Our age is by far,
the safest age in world history. Our times has
less personal violence then at any other
time in world history.

Anyway, back at the ranch, it is not only
in seeking our needs and desires that
government exists but in limiting those
needs and desires that government exists.

So how are we to hold to the balancing
Act of allowing some needs and desires and
limiting others?

This is in part, a personal understanding of
values and collective understanding of values.

We can seek an understanding of values, needs,
And desires with an honest evaluation of
who we are. To follow Socrates in “knowing thyself”
and examining our life, can lead us to a true
evaluation of our needs, desires and urges.
which can lead us to an better understanding
of the role that government can play in
allowing or limiting our needs, desires and urges.

How do we reach our goal of meeting our
needs, desires and urges, individually and
collectively?

Kropotkin

IAM, just read your post. Let me think about
it.

We have morality and we have “legal”.
As I have noted before, the two are not
synonymous. You can have legal and not moral.
For example slavery was legal, Jim Crow laws
were legal, the Holocaust was legal,
the denial of rights of one, few, some or all
of an race, religion, color, sex orientation,
political beliefs or nationality, can be legal
but not necessarily moral.

The miser who evicts the old woman
from her home might be legal, but it isn’t moral…

How do we understand the difference?

A defining definition of a human being can
be made in terms of needs, desires and urges.

A human being needs, must have to survive,
food, water, shelter, air, education, Health care,
to some basic needs… We also have psychology
needs of love, safety/security, belonging,
esteem to name a few psychology needs.

Now why is evicting an old woman “immoral”?
Legal but immoral?

If we are deprived of our basic needs by actions
of others, deprived of food, water, shelter,
Health care or an education, then that is immoral.

To be deprived of the basic essentials of existence,
is what it means to be immoral. Morality
revolves around the acquisition of needs
And we must engage in the acquisition of needs
in order to survive. And preventing that
acquisition of bodily needs is immoral.

We send people to prison for crimes committed
and yet we still give them basic bodily needs like
food, water, education and health care. Why do we
give those needs to those in prison and deny it
outside of prison?

People are in prison for either trying to meet
their needs or to fulfill their desires. To throw
someone into jail for trying to meet their
bodily needs is immoral. Which leaves us the
problem of desires and urges…

We can see how our response to desires and urges
change over time… At one time, recently,
homosexuals were denied their desires and urges
as being immoral and illegal…recently, to
meet one’s desires/urges to smoke weed was illegal.

We have adapted our legal system to adapt to
needs and desires. To seek love is a need, to seek
belonging is a need…and we denied those basic
needs of homosexuals by denying them the
right I enjoy of marriage…that is immoral…
To deny rights to some and allow to others
based on artificial dogma or unproven edict.

For here lies the concept of justice/equality…
To deny to some which we allow to others is
injustice, inequality…and immoral.

The equation must be maintained…

If we forbid, then that act is forbidden to all,
and if we allow to some, then that act is allowed to
all.

Morality is tied into justice and equality…

To deny basic bodily needs, on any grounds,
is immoral. To deny justice/equality, on
any grounds, is immoral.

If we allow some to vote, then we must allow
all to vote or we are being immoral/unjust.

Much of our confusion will go away if we clearly
define and understand our needs, desires and urges,
and we then build our laws around meeting
our basic bodily needs and limit desires and
urges that upset the equation that keeps our
Society and lives in balance…

Laws are not about right or wrong, but about
needs, desires, urges and maintaining the
balance in both our individual lives and within
Society…

What is justice?

Meeting our basic bodily needs…

Kropotkin