Freedom’s Delusion of Grandeur: Plight of The Ego’s Identity

Politics, religion and economics often allude to freedom, or the free will. Western societies tend to oppose restrictions on freedom, but only a highly conditional freedom, where usually the conceptual parameters of the freedom being considered are rendered a plus or a minus depending on ones circumstances.

When I was a child, I was often in charge of burning up huge leaf piles in our front yard.  I really enjoyed the responsibility; trying to keep safety my number one priority while getting the job done.  Yet these days I would be arrested or cited, and perhaps rightly so, for air pollution. Burning down my neighbors house, or myself, is considered not worth the risk of individual freedom–where others become held accountable for my own actions, by state and municipal interest.  This means the representation of The Commons finds the behavior unacceptable, and I agree.  One “freedom” bites the dust, or goes into the compost bin.

But then if I am not so understanding of my extenuating responsibilities and accountability’s to The Commons; WELL, how dare you tell me what to do, you and your government designed to restrict my freedom (by obvious restrictions on behavior).  Shame and blame on you all! It is so easy not to see the connectivity to my actions when that connectivity seems to make me do things not seeming to represent my instant gratification, or quick solution to a problem I have encountered.  And that is a kind of rub; for we would rather just do what we will in Western cultures, and rather not know of what greater impact my actions and inaction’s may have on The Commons.  In fact; try to get rid of this The Commons idea, except in abstractions, where I am seemingly left to my relative opinion in these matters.

-What Connects Freedom

We all seem to have faith in our words, like freedom; that they actually mean something.  We are free to express ourselves, usually, maybe not at times in church or at work, and maybe not to strangers is certain ways. We are told democracy and free choice make us free, including freedom of speech, but we find these have conditions, usually implied and out of sight, like not calling out fire in a crowded theater just for fun. But society decides to deprive some of freedom to vote, even though we claim to have the freedom to vote, or the right, because it believes those deprived do not deserve to vote for one reason or another, often a  punishment.  Again, Freedom, with all its pride and long history of sacrifice, rendered conditional.

We are not free at times, though if asked we would claim to be, overall.  We can be led to assume freedom means certain things and not others, while others can assume freedom does mean those other things.  Freedom is an abstraction; it declares a positive amidst an assumed negative; I claim to be free from something. That something, can very wildly by the minds of those considering what freedom means—-in context and to them.

Now context is another matter, we declare reality is pinned in by certain parameters of consideration. Much political “proof” uses these parameters to spin conception my way, or else someones I disagree with.  We can restrict or expand context by our own intention.  Sure it will rain at my house, absolutely.  But rain today?  That diagnosis is much more specific and restricted. I am no longer free to assume forever, just today.  The context of if and rain has changed.  In my view, many ideas are manipulated in these ways to suit the ideological preference.   Ideology, usually seeks to reproduce itself, and stand alone as truth for those who will buy or not question the explanation.  In that trick; emotion can present “facts” in ad hominem “proof”, when attitude leads the logic’s connective dialectic.

Usually we are not free to make up all of our own words, except with a known context exception, but changing the context around a word can make it seem to be something more specific that I mean.  I want to be free from your meddling in my affairs! Or; I wish I were free from this caste on my leg! Or; I intend to be free from money worries. Freedom becomes the sought after release from stress in the abstract.

Like the air, words belong to a collective, a common thing.  This common thing is sometimes called The Commons.  Most all things in life are derived from commonalities, or communally possessed givens; poems from existing words; inventions from existing ideas, most of my or your genes from humanities gene pool. We are free to ignore our common ground to our peril.  The Commons is effectively the Super Context—my breath is taken in from our common air. Ignore the air or ignore the language, and you will find yourself in dire straights.

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I can be mad at anyone who calls these in common things “collective”, if I have one of the anti universal ideologies inserted into my conceptual programing.  If collective or commons has been turned into a socialist or communist ideological tag, just mentioning it can become a Thought-terminating cliché for me. It then is a bias to me, to hear such things called collective; why, you have yours and I have mine.  If I bias to the subjective end of consideration, my ego can better identify reality as being mine—my possession, my God, my stuff, my whatever.  I may have then shrugged off awareness of the collective aspect, The Commons.  If so, I may never give it another thought, and wish others would never bring it up.  My big truck is polluting your air?  Mind your own freak’en business! And so The Commons becomes denied or derided. And I assume I know ‘the kind of people’ who mention collective or commons.

But now, with my subjective identity, if someone comes along and says to me that taxes are taking my money and giving it freely to those who do not deserve help?  The Commons can be quick led into a kind of inferred obvious negative weight.  One that I can then assume I feel, cause I, and most of us, could use more money for something.  If I have clean air, I posses it as far as I am concerned at my house, why should I care if someone else does or does not?  Let them buy their own air filter.

Yet The Commons is effectively The Universe; it is a unity.  If I declare unities not relevant to my thoughts, my thoughts do not actually have the power to exclude the real Universe, but to instead be ignorant about it.  My denial of connection still caries consequence, so then its resulting problems or perception and cognition will be assigned to some imaginary cause.  Perhaps a religious or political one. Oh lets say; You people.

Environments are this way, and society is even this way, and yet by focusing on my background’s rules and expectations, I can be excluding others just as valid, or just a truthful.  I render their image less worthy than mine.  Heck; if I had to buy an air filtration system, why don’t they just get responsible and do the same.  The problem with those people is that they are lazy and want government to do everything for them! This kind of stance boldly ignores that some may not be able to buy one.  Then what is my responsibility to this commonality; what do I care?  The answer is telling to levels of detachment to identity to The Commons, by those led to believe they are somehow outside of it.   Or that it takes care of itself, and does not depend in any way upon me.

-Cutting Up Identity——-The Trouble With You People

We seem stuck with individuals thinking as they will, and so seeming to be free to do good or ill. We see in our world today, that God so often stands in as a kind of abstract idol.  Allegedly monotheistic religions claim their subjective experience of religious narrative as absolute truth. Then, others, with their one God, are false, for this one God could not be so different in human impact and behavior.  These others, with their alien God, become strangers with behavior to reject as not being true.  They become The Other, others who are so different we need not attempt full understanding of the legitimacy of their ways.

This is how much conservatism reacts to inwardly contain followers identity, to shelter it in ideology, and effectively, arrogance or indifference toward others not of their group.  Their religion might say respect all, but rationalizations say the others do not deserve respect unless they become us, otherwise, they seem to represent the bad unknown and undesirable otherness we are attempting to eradicate.  This seems to institute the inevitable conservative turf battles with others as they compete over resource; human and material.

Again in this, The Commons, the generic like unity of all things in existence, is effectively bypassed for what I know and am told to respect or to not respect.  Freedom is again highly conditioned; I am free to believe what I am told by those claiming a-prior awareness of absolute truth, or I am free to digress and go my own way, outside the group paradigm, and into a place seemingly alien to it.  For instance; who says that pantheism is not a kind of One God, only revealed specifically into all things?  —The dictionary? Monotheist? Atheist?

Monotheist will see the danger; the pagan past seems hard to detect if God is in everything, so make Creation seem somehow independent from God; God created it and left it for us, or God no longer wants anything to do with it. However this does leave me and my life’s concerns, so tied into that Creation, as perhaps of no concern to The Creator,  unless I selectively see ways to make God interested in what I am doing here.  But I will thank God for my new car or for helping my sick child, because I do not really know exactly how the Universe is working and how involved God is with my life and its hopes, dreams and realities.

In reality, we find that may monotheist will look upon Creation as delivering signs from God.  The prayed for rain; the prayed for child; the prayed for death of one suffering terminally; the prayed for defeat of a foe; the hoped for outcome. We can very much believe God is involved with the minutia of our lives.  We seem to want God to be so involved; to manipulate The Creations Commons to my own needs and desire.  If I pray for rain, and the neighbor, just as wholesome, prays for dryness to bring in the hay, do I really expect it will be raining at my house and dry at my neighbors?  For many, the answer by default is, Yes.

God will answer the righteous prayers.  But why should God reward me for following orders to achieve desired results? This seems not a freedom of choice, but a barter system of reward and punishment.  Where is the spiritual merit in that?  Yet for all too many, the important thing is actually not to question beliefs, it is to not have questions, rather to act in rote conformity and be rewarded now or later for not engaging my own critical thinking to freely make my own choices.

Travel around this world we live in, and beliefs such as these are scattered everywhere; trust authority concepts and do not think about them, except in ways to validate them.  Again, these conserved notions are much of what human conflict is about; the inability to be present in the present moment with all or faculties available to address Creation as it is.  We are instead, busy forcing our ideas upon it, claiming they are some absolute truth, so reality must in some other way be wrong.  And so come the many varied forms of rationalization, to explain away Gods motives as unquestionably pure, or those of others as unknowable except in the negative of their strangeness, or otherness.

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Most human identity is derived from conditioning by whatever hereditary platform I have.  If I am a woman, well in many cultures, the idea of freedom was seldom meant for me.  I am free to be me, obviously, but only so long as I follow the cultural programing.  The Commons, as far as culture is concerned, is saying my role is restricted to certain definite parameters, while men may not be.  Even in the USA, where we claim all kinds of freedom, I can just assume, as commercials do again these days, that the woman can afford to be at home and cleaning the floors while the man is out working, or…

In the name of Freedom, as in the name of God; all manner of perversion and good works are done, while the holistic impacts of our beliefs are ignored or assumed the credit of God.  Yet those who are too other than our currently accepted beliefs, are most likely bizarre and discounted, except in the negative, as an influence in our worlds.  Subjective arrogance, the allusion of abstraction, the mind games of idea manipulation from abstraction to subjective narrative, all these are combining everyday with our and others ignorance to produce many of the “complex” conflict conundrums hounding humankind.  This remains problematic and persistent, as we are led to allow others to do the thinking for us.

My Freedom ignoring Connection will likely lead to extinction; F-C=E.  This is one formula, where I am one of the ingredients, as are you.

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Freedom’s Many Bells Ring Relative To You

What’s This Freedom Stuff all About?

Can I do whatever I want without consequence? You know. Be completely free?

{I write this post with the Texas Governor implying the desire to be free from Washington, as well as other new-found desires for Freedom; from freedom from oppression to freedom from need. And reflecting on perhaps the final freedom some seem to be seeking; freedom from cause and effect, a freedom from Reality.}

When are you free to do, or free from what?

If I am free to do or believe in something, what does truth, reality or right and wrong have to do with Freedom?

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Freedom, and especially Liberty, seem to imply that the absence of the quality exist, which is to be considered as not good. We tend to mean to be free from some certain thing or process that is presumed inhibiting. This sense of specificity of a positive to a negative, can make freedom contort to what ones interest in particular are, even to the point of opposites. Freedom then enters the existential relativity zone; where it means what I want it to.

Example; You are free to go look for food, or you are free from the need to look for food. You may be hungry because you cannot find food but are free to keep looking. You may never worry for food or hunger since you have all the money or food provision you need. Free to want in one example and freedom from want in another. Freedom is an abstract concept relative to ones own situation, and to ones degree of living in abstraction, or minds belief. You can be free to get a job or starve, while an employer may feel they should be free to use you as they will.

Speak Up?

Most of us like the abstract idea of Freedom of Speech, because we would hate to have our words and thoughts inhibited, implying some external authority decides what we can say from what we can think. However, most no-one supports the view that if you feel like being free to say; FIRE!!! in a crowded theater when there is no fire and a likelihood for panic, along with tragic consequence from that free act, most will not contend that you are free to do that without consequence.

That you have every right to do that thing if you wish, for whatever reason you like, may bring restriction upon your freedom by the exercise of it, including prison or other inhibition. Abstractions can become self contradictory in human real world behavior, for they seem to exist outside of notions of accountability and responsibility when abstraction, a symbolic ideal, is held above the consequence inherent to reality.

Once something ascends to the level of a consensus reality, it can appear true=Appearance Reality, while being more of an idea/theory/presumption than a truly real thing in and of itself. If we all “know” you must be lying about something from the incident narrative we have heard, do we really know the truth? You may actually know you are telling the true facts as you know them from experience, yet I can assume you must be lying. Pre-existing bias can make facts sift out into preordained boxes where it is assumed they belong, all while I assume I am being objective.

This relativity factor to freedom’s context, breaks it out of the abstract purity of idea. I suppose no one actually is stopping you form saying what you wish, but society may hold you accountable for the consequences (right or wrongly) if you actions causes particular harm, or may reasonably seem able to. Do you really believe you have the right to pick anyone at random off the street, to prove your freedom, and say they just killed someone and should be then stopped in any way possible?

Yet what I have just portrayed is close to being realized in the manner some opinion and political thought is expressed; that without sound objective reference to direct evidence as it relates to systemic context, we can accuse others of all manner of what we despise in the world or in culture, saying they are the cause of it and giving our preumed evidence. We are in some manner free to express our opinion, for it is not directly responsible for another actions, but we have come close to manifesting our own freedom as perhaps an others motive or desire for oppression or inhibition—-of us.

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Freedom and Liberty are not always the producers of good, but we seem to understand that without their continuance, we can be certain of the bad running wild. But after saying that, it is likely that in some aspects, I do not support others definitions of freedom when I have been convinced it manifest oppression of an others will in some prominent way, especially if that others will is not producing the restriction of someone else’s same freedom.

So what? It seems most of us like freedom, especially our interpretation of it, but can dislike how it manifest in others views. Freedom is then; not the universal positive we can sometimes assume, at least we can feel it is not, seeming then to know it is not. The question comes back to each one of us; do we accept others freedom when we do not respect how freedom “lets” them behave?

Here we come face to face with otherness, and the perhaps biased perspective we might have on abstractions like Freedom; I can assume these are sacred in some way—when I seem denied them. This subjective putting of Freedom outside of a super context of responsibility and consequence, may well place it into realms of confusion and delusion.

We do not always know if our abstract idea that is seen as a negative in others, is what we assume it to be. We do not always know, with our beliefs, whether we are seeing with one eye things two dimensionally, or more fully true with two conceptual eyes, or even more fully true with many.

Individuals are not always clear regarding what is whole and true, since your and my situation, including our histories, tend to lend weight to a direction of preference. Our situations can act as a seduction focus lens to our beliefs, and what I think others are about. This seeming dichotomy can come into our sights in our organized interpretive viewing scopes; Religion, and especially politics, can present their true world views, while never truly owning up to the subjective dimension which they do inhabit.

Crippled truth can be dangerous or unhinged truth.

Instant Karma?

The Golden Rule, and the Kantian notion of The Categorical Imperative, both imply that I will not do what I would like to do at times, for so doing would violate the inclusion principle of rational consistent dialectic. If I want my speech to be free, I should likewise allow others speech to be free, or they could some day deny my own freedom. The subject is included in the objective context. I support an idea like Free Speech, not because I always like it, but because by excluding others, I open a Pandora’s Box to anyone claiming authority as censor, to themselves decide what is said. Thus eliminating Free Speech, or dismembering it, along with destroying awareness of what others are thinking.

By methods of ideological thought seduction leading to thought manipulation/control, some individuals and societal entities have intention to deny truthful and Whole Free Speech, be it by overt censorship, or by systemic/economic censorship, and sometimes relative value enticements such as so called moral values. We can believe we have Free Speech, and seem to, while possibly behind the scenes or by access inhibition, we are not in a true Free Speech Context. And with the “right” indoctrination as to why we should inhibit speech, even though it may not be a direct threat to others, society tends to sit idly by as a right such as Free Speech is in profound ways, rendered mute, being we are in effect forced not to hear.

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Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death.

Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

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Patric Henry’s speech seemed to know what Liberty meant in his context; Being treated intrinsically unfairly by an external authority, such as in slavery, imbues one with the awareness of the lack of Liberty. When you know you are functioning according to what seems reasonable local law and assumption at to your will, then someone or some other entity comes in and says effectively; forget what you know or how it appears, I am taking all your stuff unless you give it over to me when I demand. You actually owe it all to me, cause you never owned or possessed your world by the laws I hold in effect over you. My interest are preeminent.

To have my view of Liberty, if I were a British Owner of colonial America, you would need to be me, for I have my preeminent law on my side of possession. I can think your claims of Liberty and Rights are only veiled desires to apprehend what is rightfully mine. After all, The Law is on my side. These were the rules. I am right. No debate.

Liberty and Freedom are subjective, able to be manipulated by thought seduction, cultural perspective, and somewhat dependent upon what I become convinced I need independence from. Their existence as abstractions in a context of seemingly infinite interconnection and interrelationship, make them serious subjects up for debate. Yet these very subjects are routinely treated by the seduction/temptation of privilege and opportunism, as mere objects to an end that secures ones subjective place above all else. While protected behind the sometimes alleged sanctity of The Law, one persons Liberty can inflict upon others—tyranny, legally.

Truth’s Point of View?

The often ignored but ever-present inclusion principle of any super context, such as The Commons, renders the subjective an interest to the objective, because reality includes all as One. Of course I can fantasize that I need not include the universe, the environment, society or others in my calculations of thought and behavior. Ignorance knows no bounds, nor limitation on what it will claim to know.

Truth is True; Fair and Balanced have nothing to do with Facts in Full Context unless they are a conscious part of obtaining all objective information.

The idea of fair or balanced speech or news is an oxymoron, if what is being pursued is The Truth. Opinion can be true and any degree of false, to lies and untrue.  To balance a truthful view with one that is not can leave us continuously spiraling down into falsity.  Equating reality with fantasy, as if they were equals (fair or part of balance), is often opinions biggest mistake.  Yet the notion is now out there that so called fair and balanced is a good thing, when it can lead to a kind of existential morass of; well this is true for you and that for me.

The Truth is true and not liable or dependent upon fair or balanced opinion of it. The real truth can actually be interfered with; disguised or veiled over, by attempts to make Truth a process of some preconceived ideas of balancing. I would say someone is indeed seeking to hide certain truths, if they assume or presume to balance things over It’s presentation. Instead, some other agenda may well be foisted over the very definition of Truth, seeking to deny its reality base and instead insert interpretive lenses to bias Truth to a particular viewpoint. Fair and balanced truth or news is just as likely to be slanted and biased, only pretending to not be.

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Let Freedom Ring

Proclamation on many conservative sites, also songs so titled

Martin Luther King Speech “I have a Dream”

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The ringing of the bells of Freedom is a more poetic take on hope’s and dreams that can become real, if only… were true. To be true, the plea is to Let Freedom Ring. The Sound of Freedom notes an atmospheric context that seems to infuse the common air itself.

We can imagine, as if at the end of World War Two, bells ringing in Europe and America. We would know a certain threat has passed. A long nightmare has become a dream now of promise made from the hearing of bells. A duty to Freedom to prevail has become true. We would all hear the sound and know, perhaps first within our hearts; I hear Freedom’s Sound.

Metaphor can create powerful connection and insight. The abstract Freedom uniting the Allies in the War had become visceral to most citizens. We knew not what tyranny would have done to us, but what we did have, we knew we would lose. The fight for Freedom permeated ones world from top to bottom, uniting all of us in a common dream; to remain free; a Common Song.

The Things Time’s Sediment Covers

But this kind of unity of Cause can eventually be used to divide and conquer, as new and revised forms of control, self dominance and tyranny creep into being. Society as well, can find its unity of purpose becomes cloudy. Individualism, and concepts of freedom relative to the individual, can become parsed and convoluted. —I am free to do what I want and you just stay out of my way. Mind your own business. Life becomes for some, in a more real manner of speaking, just a business where it is my job to succeed and not let you stand in my way.

Someones freedom to create an enterprise and contract out to others as subjects to their will, may manifest “Free Enterprise” legality, while also creating forms of wage slavery, and anything but collectively free hierarchical mindsets. We are walking a plank between individualized concepts of freedom and collective concepts that extend to all. I can say, if I am Billionaire lets say, that I was poor and became super wealthy, so can any poor person, since I was free to. I owe society nothing for the generation of my wealth, for it was from my own effort. As if All Else played no part.

My Billionaire scenario exist in an abstracted out and subjugated to situation notion of individualism and freedom. Most “Free Market” systems reproduce this concept, contouring consensus and appearance realities continuously to suit their advantage, for they have extra access to so do their will. Everyone cannot be a Billionaire, not until all work is somehow robotic or materialism and money value itself changes its meaning.

Until then, Billionaires are banking of continuing “failures” as in situational disadvantage for massive groups of others. Also being relied upon is that the wills of others are in such a position to be contoured to surrender their will to an other to survive. The “free choice” being life or death. We exist in a kind of economic context of forced marriage. With this abstracted out consciousness that ignores The Whole of Life. While most of us try to live decently and with self respect and love in our lives, having meaningful lives does not preclude the existence of forced manipulation.

It is no surprise that the earth is in crisis, or that nearly twice the number of those who died at the 9-11-01 attacks, or 5,000 children a day die from kinds of water poisoning. Yet are we changing all the rules to a new paradigm modus operandi every day to stop the ongoing tragedy? So called free societies seem to be more bout some kinds of self serving notions of freedom, than expressions of Freedom that include all specifically.

If the big powers that be; oligarchical interest and those who pander to them, do not see the death of so many children’s lives each day, notice what happens: The news is of other issues, and not so much those issues of the poor. This is an institutionally loaded off balanced information feed to public consciousness. This institutional corruption of perspective is now considered the way it is. One will likely be labeled a “Class Warfare” advocate to bring up the situational disadvantages of most people in the world. This is how thought seduction works to control ideas in a culture to protect the big powers that be above all others.

Organized Ways To Validate Advantage

Opportunism and exploitation, though sheltered under their own abstracted concepts of freedom, can seek to keep others in bondage because of systemic based need; need of those stressed to “surrender”, and the need of those to use who are in that position to feel as they must surrender. This, while those of great advantage have both access and motive to proliferate-out their self serving forms of sculpted freedom. Oligarchies survive by these methods, in Democracy, contouring freedom to suit their need first, and society, including the individual others, as collateral interest to be managed mostly by stress and assuaging thought seductions.

Some bells of Freedom may ring as good for me, while others hear them as if the sound deposited weights upon their shoulders, for they are. Separatist concepts of freedom will seek to allow individuals to get what they can, most any way they can, while others seemingly less ambitious or ruthless, will have their lives valued as less. This is humankind’s attempts to deny the full responsibility, accountability and consequence to their actions, by pretending our consensus values are real an true values. I can be for freedom, while in the same note, intending it to serve me at the expense of others, and feel and be widely perceived as quite the success.

The Universal Bell of Freedom would not so ring.

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Live Free or Die————

–official motto of the U.S. state of New Hampshire

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We will be free, or else what is the point of living? But have we approached the free will and determinism conundrum that has been surfacing throughout this whole Freedom presentation?

It seems the stance for the free individual in a free country is powerful in the abstract, and while buttressed by a faith in hindsight, but when do I really know how free I am and in what ways? How dependent am I on my feelings and interest to denote what I think the Big Freedom is? Am I not free to be wrong as well? What context do I control from my mistakes, errors and misjudgements as they spiral off down the road of Life?

The Truth Will Set You Free

One way this is said in some Bibles

Politics, and to some degree religion, claim not to be wrong. The left and right may have whole different definitions of truth, cause and effect, as well as responsibility of the individual and the society, or collective interaction of individuals. Most of us follow the ideas of the culture we are from, never intending to give other notions a fair or balanced chance at convincing us of being real Truth. We are indoctrinated into a belief system. It may be said that “…and the truth shall make you free”, but what standard am I holding my definition of truth to? That will make all the difference between what is true and what is concocted.

The existential problem we have is agreeing on the meaning of things, the meaning of thoughts, the meaning of Life as ultimately what I mean to the Universe or God, if anything. We do not always know exactly what exist as Truth, for it is easy to mistake opinion for fact while interpreting facts with opinion. When am I absolutely sure that I truly am not offering opinion as real truth? Perhaps this is why the incentive has been acknowledge that somehow, presumably the Real Truth will make one free. It will do it, pave the path to Freedom, because it is Real and not otherwise invented by human idea.

That is a hard one for many reasons, some I’ve pointed out prior. When do I know something real empirically? When can I trust meaning to be automatically right? Where is this truthful path that paves the way to liberation for the self? And when can I be sure I am actually on it and not otherwise convinced by someone that this must be the True Way?

Since language itself is a collective conceptualization individualized, I cannot be sure I am thinking “straight”. Somehow I will need to have something bordering on absolute faith in something sacred to Reality; a way reality is beyond my values imposed upon It. This will vary for many of us, for in some instances, even going on a quest for an absolute Truth, or something near to it, will run up against the many human systems, some claiming Divine origin, which already claim to have the only Absolute Truth. This will seem to imply (sometimes very overtly) that to question within one of these many one and only truths, then, is a form of rejecting It. Curious. Also a convenient Thought-terminating Cliché, a tactic of mind-control.

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Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose’…

—from Janis Joplin’s song “Me and Bobby McGee” by Kris Kristofferson

Is Death The Penultimate Freedom?

It is a curious question; does presumably no responsibility equate to Freedom?

Being free from earthy tethers. There are some human beings who think they have no responsibility to much of anything. It could be someone living on the street, knowing too much loss all too intimately, and living to avoid connections that need maintenance. In this case, ones survival is a full enough time job; just maintaining ones life. Others with no responsibility left to lose, might be some of the super wealthy; got all the money they ever will need, can get whatever they wish (theoretically), and again, just managing everyday life can become the big issue in their lives. Society tends to frown on the former and envy the latter.

Most ideas of Freedom come with this lack of tether to something or someone. In practical reality, between your consciousness and that world of others out there, there seems a deal to strike. It is up to you and up to us to truly define what are legitimate freedoms that benefit all. Freedoms that support institutionalized bias against some group or other kinds of people must be scrutinized for their validity; do they support a Common Truth, a true universal known, or are they rationalized toward ideological preference? We face the same issue in this as with The Golden Rule.

What Is Knowable In Common; The Key

Reality is at the heart of this matter. You and I are part of The Real, yet we know we can be mistaken. What way is there to validate Truth, or in another way of asking; When are facts or statistics, the elements of the observable world, when are these known in their largest context? Not some spacious reasoning like; It’s raining so the drought is over. We do not know this, even though rain will be likely how a drought will end. A thing is not in abstract isolation, not even Freedom, somewhere thresholds are crossed, lines known only by understanding of context.

We must be humble in this regard; I never know everything. I never know all there is to know, possibly on any one subject, let alone their interconnecting relationships to all things. I might know what we think is all there is, but where is my validation from Creation?

Humankind has developed standards for reason and what actually constituted valid logic. It is arguable whether we modern humans are any better at this determination than some of the earths distant cultures. Time and recorded history have established some characteristics for education and understanding, generally validated as correct by repetition of outcome predicted, and or conserved into culture that persist. The world of scientific invention; even the development of agriculture, comprehends some manner in which things work, seeking to replicate them toward new ends.

The key is to work toward objectivity. It is a goal. Creativity intends to move reality into a new dimension of perception. New dimensions are not necessarily true. I can say and or invent things that are not well. They will not survive the test of time. Creativity and invention do tend to require trial and error, which may lead toward improvement in an ideas viability, particularly if one is accurately judging ones strengths and weaknesses accurately in their environmental context.

Even in invention, one works toward objectivity. One works to be into truth and out of error or false notions. Creative freedom still requires a super context; some way others will know the usefulness of something coming into existence. We do not know, while discovering Creation via science, whether what we find and then use, will help or harm our lives in the long term, particularly if we reduce our awareness of consequence to action, including discovery and invention. Without an intent to overview through super context perception, we can poison the very water we drink.

If I invent a new clothespin that tends to drop things in the wind, no matter how cool I make it look, it still might fall into lack of use, because it is not true to intention–holding up clothes. Even if it is true to coolness, practical reality may have it fall by the wayside. We do test some elements of the truthfulness of things all the time. Why? We intend to live a real life.

If someone is obsessed with living a cool life, surrounded by cool things that presumably throw their cool weight around onto themselves, my dysfunctional clothespin still might be the preference of such a one. Does not validate it as a good clothespin, just useful to select individuals for their own motives. Many ideas continue in this kind of amorphous zone; valuable to some but not to others, so how true are they? I might say it is perfect and you say; No way! Freedom is not free of this very problematic outcome; that freedom is invoked when it is of particular use to someone to invoke it, and not universally.

Most every human endeavor has gone through a somewhat systematic evolution based upon trial and results. We seem to need to find what reality is and fit in with it in the long term, yet his can appear to be a mechanical outworking; if all is logic and truth, all things seem possibly predetermined, as if machines are following out mathematical formulas dressed up with emotion, our ignorance and feelings seeming to present freedom as an illusion of our own ignorance.

Some philosophers believe the break with absolute determinism in human consciousness occurs with forgiveness; That one’s emotion or “The Facts” prove to you someone has been bad, likely to you or society, and what do you do? You commandeer your feelings away from what seems obvious reality. You say; I know how it appears, I see what was done, but to free myself from my own chance of misjudgement and government by the negative, I forgive this person or act. An uncommon sense of freedom can be pursuant to acts of forgiveness. The one forgiving coming to know; I seem to have forgiven myself, and it seems Divine.

There is an Biblical saying in Mathew; ‘to judge not lest you yourself be judged.’ It is a very wise overview of the problematic nature of perception of others, particularly how it seems we can accuse others of what we do in a big way ourselves, but try to keep from our own consciousness. The old saying then proceeds into rationality, how useful is it to expect the ignorant to act wise, and be upset over what they seem not to understand? How qualified am I to act as judge and executioner over an other’s misjudgements? Any hypocrisy endemic to that? Forgiveness asserts ones gaze toward Higher Cause; God, and or Love and Union, over what seems to divide and sink our relationships.

Forgiveness, thought of as impractical and foolish in many instances, may be the only way out for a people who truly respect the gifts of Freedom. It seems individual freedom will be irrelevant if collective freedom is not respected. A higher context for Freedom is essential for the individual to live honestly in a real world, as opposed to an imaginary one. Imaginary worlds can be anything one wished or believes is true. They are “True” only inside of separation, or an alienated perception of the nature of Life and Being.

As alone or alienated as I may believe I am by all evidence, I am still connected to The Whole One Thing. If I am lost, I am lost inside worlds of my own making, for I decide what is the value in what I perceive; I can still go on to both forgive and to understand.

Humankind has developed systematic schemes of behavior and value, that in effect, allow some of us to take energy from others lives while all legally sanctioned. We may not perceive what this judgement upon the time and life of others leaves ourselves with; whether our ideas of gain and favor are truly success–so says my assets, or are merely rationalizations to systematically get away with others bondage to us.

What is truly conscious agreement between free beings seems often hidden behind the veil as in the wizard of OZ. The illusion continuing as long as the scheme is never truly exposed to the real light of day. Perhaps why such an investment is given to perpetuating lacks of understanding between various human endeavors and relationship by shaming, attempts at ostracism and Appearance Reality indoctrination campaigns. The veil or wool pulled over the eyes.

Free Reign

Humankind has no guarantee that it remains free to be, or free to be wrong indefinitely. Wrongness will become apparent, but where I believe the source of that wrongness is will make all the difference. Whether I can change my life to be in alignment with Life. Or whether I insist I, or we, or you, have broken the invisible contract with Life one manner or another.

It is a determination as to what perception rules my consciousness. I can settle for defeat, bowing down to the ignorance of the world; my own and of others as victor. I can also settle for Love, for Life, and insist I work for its Cause no matter what befalls me. It may well be that the highest Freedom is in the surrender to The Truth above my own opinion. The Truth may make one free, but that freedom becomes an unbreakable union, if I insist on It above surface waves of self interest.

This one thing is clear; others do not make me free. Freedom is an every moment undertaking. We have relatively good methods of discerning truth from falsity. The so called Key To Life will be in that lock. How closely will I attend to Truth’s numbers? Ultimately we are faced with this personal decision; do I believe what I do because I am free to, end of story, or is there a realty where it does make a difference whether I balance truth with make believe? Truth is not fair and balanced in this fundamental respect; facts in context cannot be balanced with opinion and fantasy as if one then knows objective reality. In this, me and you have much humility to know.

The question becomes; what combination do I trust to unveil Truth’s Key? For all combinations will claim to. I say this for it is evident there is the intent out there in opportunism, blind faith, and its obfuscations, not to look too closely as to the Key, and which lock we are actually opening; one based on real Truth, or something just claiming to be.

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Work Makes You Free

—Nazi Slogan

Contouring freedom to the extreme, even the slaves of the Pharaoh or of the plantation owner can be told they are free. You’re free to run and I’m free to shoot you in the back. This is not only the circular thought process rendering of cults and madmen, it bobs up here and there in society’s Mainstream as well as the worlds religious and political offerings. I believe this is at times used to existentialize a consideration into an amorphously undefinable state. Then a concept can be made to apply to most anything given the right angle. Then the Real Truth may have an extra difficult time at becoming known, as if someone is inhibiting the path to Freedom—for a reason.

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Freedom is seemingly once again raising its not free head, to see through the eyes of its beholder.

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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freedom

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As an abstraction, Freedom has become one of the most wide open to interpretation concepts.

I don’t know: Intelligence and Ignorance Divide Democracy

I do not know what I do not know.

This seems a most obvious statement; for how can we know what we do not know?

Some know the truth (they will say), for they trust knowledge, or alleged knowledge sources, likely based on some personal historical connection. Much of religious and political ideologies embedded in culture are handed to one young, as basically the honest truth. Then you “know” that other beliefs not included, are presumed suspicious, or at least in some manner, not good enough for you. Apparently the culture has rejected or ostracized those alien ideas.

I do not know if most know their beliefs are likely from some individually relative situational association, and not an attempt at pure and honest whole objective reasoning. Whether it is your church, your school, the Nazis or the Communist, they all knew that; to get one when one is young, is to have accomplished much of the “proof” to “knowing” and belief. We are quite like computers being booted up with the local software, hence running these proof programs designed consciously, or not. If one does not know to question their own assumptions, one does not know what all the relevant questions of life are, nor what the other answers are. And more importantly, I do not know what I do not know.

YOU ONLY GET 100 YEARS

A quality of consciousness is essentially constant. A bright 10 year old may hold their own with many a less active 30 year old, or even older, and notice that they, though young, seem to know more than the senior. The elder can leave the conversation realizing they just learned something. The me in me has a certain conserved quality. I do not seem to have changed my identity. Unfortunately, not all consciousness is now point apparent. Some awareness seems residual to the passage of time, where one gets an historical perspective on how things actually work out, compared to how they might have thought they would way back when. In some of this awareness can emerge what appear to be spiritual truths.

These will fall into the same reality check as other truth, being that we do not know exactly why we assume they are as they are. If I do not challenge my beliefs to a broader light of day, I may never see where they fit in the spectrum’s of human definition and comprehension. One profound clue to this difference being manifest as an actuality is; though most human beings have extraordinarily similar basic needs, when it comes to religion, politics or other cultural ideological glasses, the world seems to have many differing brand name interpretations.

This parochial unquestioned confidence that many of us have of our own viewpoint, creates a problematic meeting, or engagement with other notions fulfilling the same needs. We tend to assume the others are competing with us, and so are a threat, or we think they are simply wrong or unfathomable. This suspicion becomes ground for ignorance, fear and paranoia to rule relationships.

THE UNBRIDLED EYES OF A CHILD

When I was young I tended to think many elders were in strong denial of life’s grand possibilities. I felt that the world had such profound potential for human beings, and that it was being horribly misused and mistaken. I saw these adult competing interest as suffering over self imposed restrictions in perception and imagination. I could “feel” this mistaken identity in the society, yet was unequipped to explain it.

This phenomenon is often called youthful idealism, which you will presumably grow out of once “practical” realities tone down your optimism, while you conform more and more to convention. Society supplies many comporting perks and bonding rituals for those who surrender to the norm and conform. I felt personally, that I could never turn my back on my greatest hopes and dreams for human beings. I was ignorant, however, of what time would actually teach me, and if I would be prepared for the learning of its lessons, or be skipping the course that day.

I did not know what I did not know. Kinda like saying one does not miss what one never had, but for dreams, they go beyond conventional having, as well as leaving an impact when they are ignored. Kinds of experiential consequence happen in life that can be particular to an individual, and unpredictable in younger times when these associations were unknown. Youth has this certain kind of time related unknowable knowledge barrier, yet one cannot explain exactly to one what that is or what it will be. It is time and lifetime dependent. One reason age can bring with it, wisdom, or a profound lack of it.

I am implying a kind of age related knowing. There is also an age related loss, where one can change ones view as the concerns arriving through time and situation change the appearance and appeal of ideas. This does not make the new impressions necessarily correct, they come about inside their own reasoned logic matrix’s. Age does not mandate truth or wisdom. Wisdom needs to be attended to, it is not an automatic pilot, or the elderly would all be pure founts of wisdom. Obviously, many are not. Likewise, a conscientious young person may be wise way beyond their years, yet not necessarily have that age related perspective of experience. We would seem to need one another throughout the age spectrum for many practical reasons, yet much of society now encourages the ghettoizing of age groups for mass marketing and other dissections.

THE GREAT GO ALONG VAST MAJORITY; WHO KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO

One aspect of life which many seem unawares of; is that power seeks to preserve its higher status. We have been warned by the ages, of letting power form in human relationship; that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I can even venture to guess that when President Eisenhower cautioned the nation as to the dangers of a military/industrial/(congressional)/ complex, it was in reference to this power and corruption guaranteed in relationship to democracy. Power’s outward appearance in the world, is privilege over other human beings. Wisdom may be a kind of power, but it metaphysical and can be ignored. Money and force, however, have instant impact, nearly guaranteeing influence. This “quick power pill” carries great temptation and great corruption within its very ease and access. It is no wonder politicians are so addicted to its use.

Democracy is a fundamental egalitarian institution; one person one vote; equal. For power interest, democracy must be subverted or otherwise rendered subservient to them to maintain domination and the corruption it allows. That means that those holding the security card of privilege, for whatever reason, tend to want to keep it, regardless of what is happening to others around them. This then, for these “top” of the pyramid people, requires a redefinition of humankind emotionally, to divert and to escape the guilt of having while others have not. It is no wonder society tends to keep this dramatic contradiction held at bay, those who bring it up, called malcontents, free riders, communist or some other negative tag that tends to divert subconscious identity cues away from a demonized concept.

The culture itself must be cast into a paradigm with positive and negative self achievement quantified connotations involving perceive merit to privilege. This greatly facilitates allowing the unequal distribution of the benefits of having and keeping, all buttressed by a judgemental regime, where having and not having is made into a right, depending upon the hierarchical station the judgements place the individual in. Now, mass liberation ideologies like democracy, can be convoluted, controlled and used to advantage. They can be hollowed out as abstract Trojan Horses, a democracy’s citizens clamoring to bring the hierarchical paradigm right into the midst of fundamental equality and purpose, and all with tempting dreams of great success

To mandate this conditioning of dreams and expectation to a dominator model for humanity, many have defined into roles (theirs) very early in life, this “obvious” need for privileged status. Then, to remove themselves further from this having’s sense of personal societal relationship consequence, these big haves tend to seek out enclaves and other essentially walled off utopias to pursue their odd privileged socialist system for power, that is dependent on the mass of society. Amidst the emotional security of the like minded, all can seem right in the world.

The new Pharaoh like pyramid scheme is complete, where the vast majority sacrifice some part of their lives to benefit the elevated status and control these privileged beings posses for themselves as they keep others energy and sacrifice. And now minds can rationalize being the privileged beings they believe themselves to be, and think they feel fine about it. They surround themselves, often, with the material attributes of this proof of their divine entitlements.

By using their power to perhaps offer another a hand, or share a bit of their “own” prosperity, they can indeed feel both entitled and “giving something back”. This may make them feel better and be of aid and comfort to someone, but it does not undo the powerful deceptions, unless somehow, all taken energy was put back into the commons. That returning would actually have the potential of becoming an alternative to certain governmental mandates to address the issues of the commons.

THE UNFORTUNATE DELUSION OF GRANDEUR COMES HOME; FOR POWER CORRUPTS ONES OWN LIFE

The cognitive dissonance endemic to wealth and power structures, does seek to culturally codify their own living standards and lifestyles. They realize that because of society and the world, they are placed on relative pedestals and treated as if they were God, for they are willing to take other life energy to greatly benefit their own, and do. There is a whole natural guilt embedded into this hierarchical institution, requiring a legion of sycophant like deliverers of accolades, and much talk of success and fulfillment being worthy MOST rightly to the power structure.

Do you know if I need to tell you that it is in the interest of a lopsided perception of human consciousness and life, to have you go along, preferably unconsciously, with this whole domination paradigm? Most all of us, even if poor or on the margins of survival, have been booted up with the dominator paradigms way of self and other perception, including the apparent need of entitlements of classes of individuals who wield power over the majority of the population.

Given the somewhat veiled truths of life I have suggested, and our continuing survival on planet earth, the power holders have a somewhat easy time of selling their society usurpation formula to the population. Since they essentially control the cultural narrative in the modern world, we are breed to serve as their bread and butter, while feeling the elite’s have every right to much of our lives in these great pyramid schemes. And schemes emitting corruptions stench they are, though called a rose.

THE LONG SHADOW OF SUSPICION

We in democracies claim to see oppressive societies and cultures as being obvious. There may be an abstract notion of spiritual equality in some of them, but most have some seeming tyrant or oligarch telling most everyone how to be and how to keep things the way they are. In the westernizing world, oligarch’s had to unravel the threat of egalitarianism fundamental to democracy as well as equal rights. Creating a cultural narrative that include a way for an average individual to ascend up the hierarchic ladder to success and mass possession, making the oligarchy seem as a kind of meritocracy, where anyone can have it all, if they deserve it. This winner gets all like concept of achievement seduces the mass of population the same way as lotteries and stock markets can.

There is a subconscious truth to this wealth and power bases corruption inducing hierarchical paradigm; not everyone can be that heralded from the gutter success story. Someone will have to clean the streets and empty the garbage. There must be “failures” or others kept in pressurized states to accept what they can get, and not what they dream. It is mandated in the formula of materialism and exploitation of the environments, that most must pay the price for the few.

This does not mean the few have not achieved something, even something important. It does mean they chose the corrupted path of not seeing the usurpation of the many’s energy, or have conditioned their consciousness to accept power over others as a natural right. A long, darkening of the soul occurs as it must, the wealthy and the privileged coming to suspect democracy and any attempts at true equal access to the resources of a society. They, because of their own cognitive dissonant conditioning, must accept living above others who have little or have not, as the way of life.

We have our democracy, attempts at true justice, attempts at truly equal access etc, continually undermined by the poisoned by corruption mentality’s of the oligarchic mindset. The environments, societal as well as other earth based, are exploited without concern for the many or concern for the whole world itself. We are placed squarely under this confused blind leading the blinded view, and given what amounts to relative wish list of issues to compete over.

It is stunning in its self defeating contradiction, that in this years election, the more conservative/oligarchy party, feeling the opening, freeing threats of possible liberalism, are said to have bought large quantities of a book full of misrepresentations, to spread to the population in order to sow fear regarding the opposing candidate. Imagine the contempt for the public and the commons; here are a bunch of lies to guide your way. What do these kinds of polluted souls think of their fellows, and what darkness in their hearts must there be, to promote deceptions as truth and reality?

BREAKING DEMOCRACY

Make no mistake about it, democracy, that abstraction we now fight wars for, is being destroyed from the inside out. The contempt for the commons implied, is a contempt within the hearts and minds of those who despise equality. They are at war with themselves and their cosmological contradictions, but it is we who carry their burden. Their loss of humanity equals our loss. Their contempt for the commons, the unifying relationship and interconnection of Life, quite possibly, our epitaph.

WHILE HEAVEN IS AT HAND

We may never know what we do not know. We may claim to know this world outside of us, yet since it is not apparently obviously inside of us, never get beyond our opinion or subjective point of view. Like life itself, which we are, we can pool what we see and achieve something more.

There is hunger, starvation, alienation, pollution, depletion and more, all for what we do not accept or acknowledge, that we do know how to prevent these, if we chose to. We have been conditioned to settling for less, when we need not have to. Many if not most of invention, occurred from passion and not form profit. We demean ourselves to accept that we must be “made” or forced to do what needs to be done. That is lowest common denominator living.

Though I might only assume I know what I experience, I still do not know what interpretive lens may be coloring my perception. We also do not have proof, however, that all of the outside world in not also, in fundamental ways, inside of us. We see we are air, water, rock and mineral. We feel we have an electrical
nature. The clouds resonate within us. The lightning hints at our cumulative power, not to deny and corrupt, but to influence creation. When we look outward, we are also looking into another inside of our nature.

We are always choosing an interpretive world and self view paradigm. No one makes us be who we are but ourselves. No one also, removes us from the forces of creation and being, but our own assumption. Being in the dark regarding our own motivations and their bias, is living a life unexamined, and quite likely profound ways, unopened. It boils down to an awareness of the light, and the lack of it. To where things are seen out in the open, or removed from view. Only I can insist for myself to illuminate what is and understand why it was hidden or claimed to not exist.

Love is this infinite bond itself. It is what we are, what makes life worth living, what we miss most when not seen, and what can never be adequately substituted for. Love itself is Life’s imperative. How different It is, from all the competing and strife, all the searching for what is not there. The lack of felt love is hate or separation/alienation complexes, where the not knowing, itself, directs you life energy.

Yet oddly enough, Love is always all around us, even when most lost, we are still inside Love. If not knowingly inside of It, it is up to you to get connected. Or else, not know what you do not know.

FAKE DEMOCRACY

How can true democracy exist?

It needs basic requirements, most of which we do not have any longer, or never did.

The public needs to be informed from all quarters. Well these days, we hardly hear anything on the poor, the disadvantaged, environmental impacts of economic decisions. Mostly subdued by corporate interest. A good part of the damage was Ronald Reagan’s, destruction of the fairness doctrine.

Votes need to be counted under transparent conditions. Now without even paper trails, impossible to prove non-manipulation. This damage to democracy has been perpetrated by conservative status quo interest.

We do not even have a right to vote! It is a “privilege”, thus deniable by whomsoever privilege rules. This opens the door to mostly conservative interest to deprive voters a ballot.

A true democracy should minimally require a majority to elect any representative or president. It is unlikely but conceivable now that we could elect a president with only 40% of the vote. What kind of union is that? who will own it?

Without any fairness to the actual ability to reach the public, money has become the power behind votes and ideas.

In the end, an electoral college elects the president. Time for us to graduate to a real democracy.

If we want to talk about freedom. Under the lack of democratic tradition evolving here, we may not have much time left.

We have now a fake democracy.

Enjoy?

ARE WE FACING THE END OF DEMOCRACY?

THE PROCLAIMED CONSERVATIVE HERO RONALD REAGAN, DID MORE THAN THROW THOSE SELF SUFFICIENT SYMBOL SOLAR COLLECTORS OFF THE WHITE HOUSE ROOF. HE ALSO TORE UP THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE, LAYING THE WAY FOR THE RIGHT WING CORPORATE ECHO CHAMBER THAT HAS MADE TRUTH INTO ALLEGED BIAS.

Who knows if president Carters solar collectors would have gone on to spark self sufficiency from US dependence on foreign oil, while lessening environmental degradation. The so called conservatives have done the opposite, sending the nation on this road to both empire making confrontations, and democracy undermining deregulation.

We have under the conservative rule, no interest in the Whole of society, except to keep “lower achievers” dependent on the wealthy for survival. This is a dominator paradigm. Just as New Orleans was abandoned with fingers pointed everywhere but to the very top. The American public knew the top executive could save an American city, if there was the will!

Unfortunately, with this new breed of opportunist conservative, every disaster becomes an opportunity for a friend or future interest to owe its allegiance to their cause. America itself is now surrendering its commons and its legacy of being a caring freedom loving people with responsibilities to all, to predators who are as predators have always been- out to stay on top.

WHAT I DON’T KNOW CANT HURT ME!—NOT!

Make no mistake about it. (That overused claim politicians use.) Business people telling editorial staffs what to focus on and what to drop based on economic bottom lines has convoluted truth seeking to avoid both the needs of society, especially the poor, and the truth that may reflect badly upon themselves. Eliminating the fairness doctrine was the undermining, below the American public belts punch, making full truth seeking to be defined as liberal bias. (I could read a thousand post on-line today, whining about liberal bias, but I would like to keep my own mind.)

Even liberals talk about; “No wonder Bush won twice.” while describing some Democratic infighting or lack of cohesion. Truth seems to be on the side that he never won fairly once, or at the minimum, the second time was a default, since it issued from the first cheat, and resulting failure to detect the 9-11 attack. All of this manipulated and contorted by the spin machinery of a “free press” that has no responsibility or accountability to providing the whole truth. It has been said that those elections, if carried out in another country, we would not have legitimized it! The Forth Estate, our freedoms guarantee, has a noose around its neck, watching the guy with the foot on the chair.

Even as a kid, when I heard William F Buckley speak on his debate show, I would be flabbergasted at how his ad hominem emotionally concluded barbs were thought of as intellectually honest, by himself! But I had grown up hearing similar ad hominem swipes. Conservatives especially, seem interested in getting the arguments out of intellectual accuracy, or any true empathy toward the plight and concerns of others than themselves. It is a peculiar self centering that thrives on name calling and cult like group think consensus reality passing as truthfulness, to not be questioned. Liberalism is by nature open to question, but not all proclaimed liberals are.

It is a travesty to observe the Democratic contenders, Barack Obama, but especially Hillary Clinton, use extraordinarily spacious logic to promote their cause. Surrogates and associations are now taken by the public as being the actual thoughts of the candidates, unless they are instantaneously disowned. John McCain seems to be given a bit of a pass on his associations, relative to the Democrats. I wonder why?

WHY VOTES MATTER AND HOW MANY

What is my actual position I hear some of you ask? Democracy’s must have fair elections to survive. They should also require a majority of voters, not some fractional plurality. Yes. We then require a more involved and deliberately knowledgeable public. What else? Whomever wins this coming time better include people from across their aisle. The damage done requires impute from more than one ideological bent. We need to return to the best and not the weight of despotic like loyalties sinking the ship of state.

We are one nation and one people for heaven sake! We must rise to the biggest sense of those words.

I have ventured into my own belief zone as my blog title exclaims. Yet I would be quite surprised to hear conservatives admit to mistakes, fundamental errors of judgment (except they were not conservative enough!) or any basic untruth possible to their philosophical positions. When questioning is the first thing they deflect, this state becomes their own lot in life. Now that they are trying to force us all to agree with them, and undermine attempts at fact checking and honest evaluations of situations, to protect their abstract delusional sense of purity. Their counterpoints in the world will both resist and respond with similar tactics. If their reign of illusion continues its polluted march forward, all democracies will be threatened with extinction. And possibly much more than that.

CONCLUSION–INCLUSION

That any of the worlds conservative movements cannot include the vast diversity of human ideas engaged toward greater understandings of environmental inter and codependencies is an anathema to the Wholeness of Life and Being that exist beyond tiny human comprehensive abilities. The accountable and responsible light that this awareness cast on being human is a challenge to us all. May the brightness of Unconditional Love cause their eyes to open, and cry into forgiveness. That is the proof of free will.

JUST A TRUTHFUL WORLD

AND NOTHING BUT THE?

What a world it would be if we could live by the Whole Truth. The truth is by definition; not in contradiction with itself. The truth can seem to us at times to be incoherent as in paradox, or blind, as in by ignorance, but that “opposition” might relate more to our abilities to understand life and the universe than its actual fact in reality.

The universe is consistent in its laws of being, or it would not be able to be, that is consistency. For this reason it is sensible to reject the lazy, convenient and opportunistic driven existential relativism that gives equal merit to truth and fiction. There is an inherent and inherited drive to Truth.  Yes with a capital T.

BUT WHOSE IS RIGHT?

Politics and religion make great distinctions over what is often actually varying limitations at interpreting reality and agreeing on its parameters available to human comprehension. Truth is in effect, argued as relative to a mistaken subjectivity, and an abstract untouchable perfection, for many belief systems, the two can never truly meet.

In these our environments, we explore our differences in perception to advance the cause of greater truth. It is the contention here, that we can enlighten ourselves by activating our critical thinking abilities rather than denying them for what appears to be current or comfortable self advancement. Orthodoxy’s, as status quo question free zones, adhered to like security blankets, can institute and worship ignorance in the place of God, or if you will, the Universe of Truth.

WHEN DECEPTION (TEMPTATION?) WHISPERS; “It’s yours! Take it before someone else does!”

When the self “advances” at the cost of the Whole Truth, one is in fact self-deceiving and self-defeating.  One cannot bypass the truth (universal reality) without dire internal/external emotional and relationship consequences. Lies, denial and other deceptions set up the fields of disharmony, aided by what has been called cognitive dissonance, and, or, a temptation to not concern thought with the Whole; the dysfunctional world of opportunism opens.

It seems the universe is set up to honor those with an honest and open heart and mind, no matter the material results humans may impose on other values that serve to confuse appearances.  The illusion of “having” materially, has become a kind of substitute for both Love and understanding of oneself and connection to all that is. Fear of loss will be advanced, however, not just to give thought to protection from insecurity, but to control perceptions by steering thought away from the heart of the Whole matter at hand.

BUT ME FIRST ALWAYS

I propose that much of the division and conflict at home and in the world is because of self serving attempts to have things “ones own way” (no matter how well intentioned!) when in fact that way is the wrong way if it fails to stand up to the inherent objective standard of passion for the Whole Truth.

Though none of us are perfect with objective clarity, life hands each one the quest to be more whole and fulfilled. This occurs in a more lasting and unshakable way by drawing closer to truthful reality, perhaps necessitating the presence of ambiguity and nuance if clear and simple conclusions are not possible. This present position of uncertainty may require humility, implied conditionality of context, and most importantly, forgiveness; for oneself and others.

LOVE FOR THE TRUE WHOLE

Tired yet of all the alleged fact and opinion that do not meet this full and unbridled standard of illumination, but instead provoke the darkness of subjectivist separation via ignorance and its progeny; conflict? Then we need a field of honesty about the human condition; about the appeal of subjective gain, and the resulting imbalance that can then emit into the world and create dissonance that will self perpetuate as conflict (some internalized state of falseness to Being), unless it is understood for what it is.

We each must acknowledge that internally and in the outside world of others, the Truth faced up to in the light can be painful to behold, making it seem a challenge to embrace the light over the darkness. Light can be blinding, if not humbling, to find in the presence of Truth that ones past assumptions have proven to be in error, and admit that that error has brought pain, discomfort and confusion into the world.

THE PAIN THAT PRODUCES GAIN

Our work at exposing what is hidden may bring this pain into the forefront to be processed. Yet true growth of individual perception only comes after this transcendence of deception and illusion. This effort is then dedicated to the proposition to be true, whatever it takes.

This is to Whole Love. May it hold us all in Its arms.

DEMOCRACY; LIBERALISM, CONSERVATISM AND DEBATE

AN OCOTILLO CACTUS ON A MONSOON SEASON DAY

ARE HUMAN ADVANCES, SUCH AS THE LONG MARCH TO INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY, (THAT CURRENTLY LETS US DISCUSS POLITICS, RELIGION, AND SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC THEORY AND REALITIES) HAVE THESE CHERISHED LIBERAL VALUES JUST COME FROM MAKING NICE?

I like the cactus, its often lovely flowers, as a red-orange flame on top. It exist in this harsh desert environment, partly because of its thorns. Thorns of a sort protects most water caring individual cactus, from being plundered to death and extinction. Most all cactus fruit are edible

The current allegedly endless war on terror, is said to be necessary by conservatives of a sorts, because our opponents wish to plunder us and do away with such liberalism’s we enjoy. To do this endless job, we need, the argument goes, to draw back our freedoms (to defend them) and retreat into a quasi authoritarian state. Limit our freedoms, put them into conservative ideological hands, to save them from the enemy that hates them.

Liberals and libertarians who suggest that this is throwing the baby out with the bath-water are called terrorist appeasers. The most popular analogy conservatives of the pre-emptive force type offer, is how certain historical figures did not oppose the Nazis as they rose to power. Point taken, but taken to where?

NAZIS AS TAG FRAME

The Nazis used this very reasoning; developing a superiority complex ideology, targeting Jews and many others as the devil (evil), then pre-emptively attacking all who oppose them. But here comes my real point about points on cactus or bayonets.

The values we cherish under the umbrella of freedom, were not handed to us through history by the good will of the Hitlers, Stalin’s, or Mao’s of this world. They had to be convinced we would not forever live under authoritarian tyranny. Most all of us have some ancestor or know of someone who is putting down their lives to stand against the will of one, by living as a thorn for the will of all.

Forces in the world that control social and economic interest, are attempting to place their own barbs, on challenge to their sometimes invisibly imposed authority. They wish, for whatever reason, to hoard life to themselves. They are reactionary in that respect, against the will of the whole, against the liberalism of Christ, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. They count on us to be spineless; to be pointless, to meander in a make nice mentality, where our own fear of defending freedom and self responsibility, for the illusion of stability, surrenders it.

OF THORNS AND FLOWERS

Vibrant democracy, as vibrant discourse, can handle strong emotion. Freedom requires both expression of idea and need, and the will to keep it in the face or eroding “reasons”, that will leave a canyon between various aspects of the whole population.

Some may wish to live in a cult like atmosphere where no-one expresses their fears; where no-one shouts; I am hurt!; where no-one says you are taking from me and denying it by words and deed. The far rights vitriolic fear machine has many crouched in a corner, fearing a conflict if they stand up for truth and justice, or just a different point of view to theirs. They have done this even to the point of threatening to send their own private army to your door, oh dissenting one.

I can see the feeling to avoid conflict. Many of us would rather live in peace than conflict. I certainly would, but not by ignoring the truth that I know and must express freely. Many, as Hitler rose to power; thought their friends and neighbors would surely not turn against them. But many, by fears manipulation to survival, did.

I hardly believe freedom and responsibility are achieved and preserved without strong emotion. I see no evidence of this but in cults. Where the surrender of ones own will to the cults figure head, can hardly be called freedom or responsibility in any honest frame of reference. Democracy and freedom require vibrant debate, but they also then require extended respect, not threats to ones own freedom to express.

IDEOLOGICAL CIRCLE SIMILARITY

The far left and the far right end up at the same place–pre-emptive attack on the whole to preserve their ideological purity. Big idea differences but hardly any difference in behavior. Harm becomes a “good” to place on those other than yourself and tribe identity.

I am OK with those who sit out the pointed needs of our collective freedoms and responsibilities because they cannot take (or reject) the occasional pin point to their ego or identity. They are either ruled by fear, or absolute Good.  And who am I to decide.

But those of us who debate and show some underlying respect; that we allow differing ideals, ideas and opinion, that we, as they once said; “I disagree with you to the core, but will give my life to defend your freedom to express your beliefs.” If this be our stance, then we will maintain democracies blessing. But if out of fear we say; “Sure. Take it all a way. Just leave me safe.” Then democracy will be taken down in the desert of humankind’s opportunist ability to be, cruel and unjust.

I live for the day humankind puts understanding before fear, places compassion and empathy before insecurity interest. But until that day of love and peace flowers, as it one day must if we are to survive, its fruits will not be known unless the path to understanding remains protected.

THE PRESIDENTIAL PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO TRUTH

WHY IS THIS QUESTION NOT ASKED OF CANDIDATES FOR HIGH OFFICE?

I know they raise their hands over the Bible or something, in front of a robed character, swearing to uphold the Constitution, when it is in effect too late and they are being sworn in. That appears to be not good enough according to our history.

We should be well aware that the presidents, perhaps as commander-in-chief(?), seem to give an order to themselves that anything goes when it comes to guiding the public to believe in things that are factually not true. The truth, it has been proven, they need not even pursue. Part of being a hard decision making god like leader I imagine?

Well this situation has proved fatal to so many, and itself seditious to our country, our reputation, and our present and future. Treason has even become a political tool of manipulation (with immunity with one parties control and a failed fourth estate), something no free country can endure and keep its decency, let alone universal rights or freedoms. Something must be done.

WE THE PEOPLE MUST HAVE OUR ANSWER

We need a Presidential Pledge of Allegiance to Truth, one made to the public during the campaign. The pledge needs the teeth of sworn acknowledgement and eventual enforcement; that when any harm ensues by the president knowingly, in the face of contrary evidence or doubt, declares something that produces documented harm to be true, when in fact that “truth” is not unquestionably certifiable; that she or he be held to account.

(National security issues under question will be handled by defense and or intelligence committees, sworn to secrecy, their evidence and access on the topic not to be interfered with. Those findings will be presented to the team of judges also so sworn to secrecy, with most severe consequences to be applied to any breaching of the nations private information.)

The Presidential Pledge of Allegiance to Truth Committee, made up of a balanced representation of the US, will demand that congress appoint an independent team of experts on the alleged untruth to determine the validity of the claim held against the chief executive, or they shall themselves so appoint it. If it is found that the president was willfully largess in stating something as true, indicating the truth was not held as the measure of policy, they will be impeached on such offense or resign their post, and a new election be immediately declared to occur in a month(?).  While the line of succession to the presidency steps up in the interim.

This is a simple Pledge of Honesty, not the kind we currently hear about taxes or whatever. We cannot be electing the head of the most powerful, and thus potentially destructive or constructive nation on earth, and allow that person to deceive us openly and at will. Congress does not uphold its authority, it has forfeit it. We are left to our own devices to see who will promise not to deceive us for any reason, and be held accountable for so doing. How can we not, and survive? Are we to represent to ourselves, our military service, and the world as the country that defends deception?

MAKE IT CLEAR, CLEAN AND STRAIGHT

In essence, it is a simple statement; will you not lie, obfuscate, cheery pick facts, irresponsibly plant or accept false stories and information, seek out only your own viewpoint, or in any other way deceive us, the nation whose constitution you swore to uphold? Yes or no, no caveats.

Will you swear to be immediately held accountable for such misinformation being used to manipulate our nation? And will you promise, not to be excused and never do it again, but to step out of the way of the truth, that we have an honest and forthright government. And not one, of characters and ideologies that seek to remake it into their own false image, by employing falsehoods as the fabric of our American creed, hidden behind the Cause of our nations flag. Democracy defeated.

This pledge sworn to the public will be construed as the candidates prime directive, to be implied as supreme law upon swearing in. It will thus be considered a retroactive mandate by the candidate to the Committee on Presidential Honesty, its court and team of judges. Our hearing the Pledge of Allegiance to Truth to the United States, by the candidate, will be construed as fact applying to their office.

This is a matter of saving out nation (and world) from totalitarian ruin. We have witnessed the lack of any authority to uphold the truth in and for high public office. The spirit of this pledge should also apply to any party in office manipulating the nation to benefit its own interest above the interest of a free and fully informed democracy.

EXPERIMENTAL CANDIDATES AND TRUST

The media is really quite a circus. While they compete for our attention under the big top of “news”, they seem eager to grab our shirt and yell at us that they are first or best at something.

What shilling for their employer this is. It might be a part of what encourages the wild speculation over how the last second has quite possibly change who the president will be, all about the race. This to to be expected in an allegedly fair competition, but nothing is much fair anymore about elections, and so freedom.

Being an unknown now seems a good advantage, you cannot be pinned down to your history, and history itself, depending upon who you listen to, seems to change. That the public is kept from any objective reality check, is to most every candidates advantage, they can invent a narrative. Which lobbying interest are really behind your favorite? Are you sure? Is someone more of a Christian because they seem to say they are? Is that what now decides the life and death issues, a fairly untestable faith? How did that go last time?

I can not underestimate symbolism, but it will be used as a double edged sword. Is one candidate the first black or woman, and is that the deciding factor in pulling a lever? I hope not, but I do believe these barriers are long overdue in being behind us.

Each candidate fear mongers in some respect, they have to plant a hope in you and that can be done in positive and negative ways. Even claiming to keep you safe with flags flying may look baby blanket warming, but it implies the others are not interested in your or their own families safety, that or are terribly mistaken in their ways and means of doing so.

We need this debate on security, but we need to broaden the definition of what security is. If you think security is might making right you will surely be wrong in the end. If you kill them all, what will you have become in the process? Opposite of everyone else who uses the same notion from their perspective? What about the other parts of survival contingent on security, like health care as just one of many examples?

Interesting how helping certain others outside your family is now called the “Nanny State”. While if you inherit, win a lottery, or by hook or crook become wealthy (Hey even farm workers work hard!), you can look down of the poor or in your eyes lowly of status and claim Darwinian or even character self righteousness.

Humans are humans, and if one thing they do not let go of is what someone did or is alleged to have done to them and their own. Survival is in every-ones interest. Every time someone is urged to be eliminated because they are out to get us, we can be lured into that historical loop that never ends, or seek to understand why others hate us or we them and see what reasons exist that make these differences real to each party.

Most religious teachers who created religions had or were “illuminated ones” who preached compassion, empathy, even nutty things like love your enemy, BECAUSE they could see how history could be freed by understanding. Then as time went by these same religious institutions often splinter or become more interested in their turf than in their original teachings. Words and beliefs can be turned around and upside down by the spirit one is possessed by in presenting the new and improves tenets. This is also true of individuals and nations.

The USA was assumed by many of us to have an illumination sort of approach to the world. We were listened to because we stood up for individual and national freedom with our bodies, such as in the world wars. We fought against the darkness of ignorance itself, guise in separation ideologies of superiority and contempt for those who are different, requiring domination.

Before WW Two was even over, the ever paranoid in us were competing over the “brains” to be salvaged from Germany. We must face this trouble about competition when it is tied to secrecy and the institutionalized inability to know what someone else is up to. We push the world ever closer to elimination by annihilation, or somehow, by actions, prove we are trust worthy.

We prove we are trustworthy and we make that top to bottom, through and through. That is faith alive and well and it will be humankind’s last chance. It is the last chance for any healthy relationship! Only truth sets us free. Not my opinion of truth, but my faith in standing with understanding even when the evidence says you are a fool to do so. Now that is courage alive, the kind someone called Jesus Christ lived for. You do not need to be a Christian, an agnostic, a humanist, an atheist, or some form of pantheist to see the power is standing up for unconditional love.

Benafia

DO NOT VOTE FOR ME OR THE COUNTY WILL BE IN RUIN

I’d like to see someone actually try running on this as a platform. That way they would not be opposed. I mean, their opponents would be at a loss for words. For instance, no one could say later; I told you so. While they probably will if anyone else won.

This political season both parties had “extremist” running that were probably more near what most of the population would agree with. As if by magic, they become excluded, and it is the case this season, even if they are polling better than the acceptable candidates. Makes you wonder who really pulls the strings.

We will not be shown the long distance realities. We will hear one party is better at defending the nation, without ever having the long distance reality check. Another will be called the party of the people or the working people, yet no matter who is in power, the tax burden, over histories arch, continues to be shifted from those who benefit big from American freedoms, to those who struggle to make ends meet, or work paycheck to paycheck.

I heard a speech from a conservative well known think tank a few years back, where the guy speaking indicated that we would need a pool of angry people indefinitely to make sure we have the right stuff to fill our military ranks. Subjectively speaking, this person looked exceedingly like what one would label as nerdy. He was a thinker, but it seems to be true, many of our nations protectors currently do come from poor backgrounds, where an income or the prospect of education, along with a noble role in the nation, prompted them to join up. This scenario is patently exploitative; we need angry people, angry enough to kill.

At 9-11, 2001, I had been near the World Trade Center just a week before. I picked up a friend at a local airport who went by them two days before to get on the Staten Island Ferry. I remember looking at the skies that night, 9-10, and wondering what tomorrow would bring. Where the world was headed.

While I was in Manhattan for several weeks before, I would get some rest (from working on an apartment) by sitting on benches with my partner on Broadway in the Upper West Side. I told her planes flying so low were bothering me. It seemed like an accident waiting to happen. They now seemed to fly diagonally across Manhattan when before they always seemed to go parallel down the Hudson, which I was near. Others probably went down the East River. Of my many visits, air traffic control seemed to have changed, or I was picking up on something.

As I left for LaGuardia in a cab, I looked out the window at all the huge urban area, all the water that went around it and thought; This place is so vulnerable. I felt ominously uncomfortable about it( as I recall the water access particularly aided this negativity). The next day after my partner returned, her daughter called us and said something was happening. I turned on the TV. I could see one tower was smoking.

When I (the only time I did) predicted a tornado to someone, one hit that spot less than an hour latter. The thing is; when I predicted it, one was hitting another high school at that very time. I lean to the idea that inner dimensions continue to connect everything that is, and at times we are sensitive, probably because of our proclivities in that area, to connecting for a moment. I have had countless psychic experiences to confirm that we do connect to one another somehow, sometimes.

I greatly digressed from the election notion for commotion. Gulp!

It amazes me to hear some political commentary, especially those much younger than I, like when I heard one see a replay of Colin Powells presentation to the UN about Iraq, the coffee shop employee exclaimed; “There it is! There’s the smoking gun!”. I had seen the same presentation earlier in the day and could tell there must be so little hard evidence, that they had to come up with drawings, innuendo, allegations, scare tactic stunts, with he said she saids thrown in. It was just propagandized info-slant parading as fact. It was astounding to see such nonevidence paraded (just trust the experts) on forward by the surrendered fourth estate as “convincing” doubt removing and the like. They seem to think we were both born yesterday, and probably after our mother fell off the turnip truck.

Conservatism draws its followers from no-think. No objective reality check involved. Instead biased rationalist stand in to verify the tenets of status and wealth, and whomever some contrived wedge issue can seduce into their ranks. They can become victims of their own faith in the assumptions of conservatism; that it is the sacred wisdom of the past(cannot be questioned); that it is automatically wholesome compared to the free thinking that should be required of liberals(an open mind is an empty mind); that status and authority are rooted in it, thus by following, helping to guarantee their favor(even other primates have the kiss up to alpha response); that by disabling critical thinking abilities, contrapuntal information is presumed false(no thinking required about info that cannot and should not be processed).

And by the way, liberals and leftest can be just as fallible in these respects, including me at times. It is somewhat easy to tell when one is engaging in cult-think when they have a word or two, perhaps a phrase that sums everyone else up; non-believer, infidel, pagan, conservative, liberal, socialist etc. These and many more can be used to remove the heart and soul of someone else. Reduce them to a few letters, then flush them and their hearts down the toilet of contempt.

We are naturally defensive when we feel threatened. After 9-11 I thought I might need to enlist, way too old, but better to use somebody who has lived a while than take those just beginning. My message is; real attacks create real recruits. I think if one is going to advocate a need to take lives, that should be done in the highest sobriety based on truth. If we are to ever transition to a peaceful world, the anger and hate will have to take a back seat to reason, which means truth telling to both the citizenry and the world.

We have seen that for some reason those controlling information in the US have been operating on deceptive fear mongering for opportunist agendas, all hidden behind God and the flag. We were lied to in getting into Vietnam and we were lied to again. I suspect that when the election of 2000 was carried out against the cause of democracy, the seed was sown for predatory interest to take over our beloved sacred abstractions, both of God and nation. Unfortunately everyone bears the consequences of this betrayal.

The truthful defense reaction of most men is to stand up against threat. That has been a male role here-to-fore, and it is one that can be manipulated by cleaver opportunist and propagandist. Others are threatened to a herd mentality behind “patriotic” truth or lies by implications they are aiding the enemy or somehow seditious, solely based on their insistence on standing up for the highest ideals of this country based on truth and not wild speculations or manipulative fear mongering dressed up as cherry picked facts. (Vallery Plame–Joe Wilson)

Keeping citizens greatly ignorant of both the world and interest in the US manipulating the world; (There is a book out I believe is called; Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins), we remain at the mercy of dark forces masquerading as the source of our own defence. This cheating on the truth to the population brings back its inevitable blow-back. Lies and deception create monsters of the psyche, monsters that under alleged legitimate concern for the nation, suggest keeping a pool of angry people. What kind of vision for the future is that! What an insult to the nation and to men and women, to suggest we would just roll over and let our cities be taken over by; communist, fascist, or religious fanatics. Yet this blame Americans using their freedoms first notion, is paraded around as the one one party holds.

Huge sums of money are funneled into a Faux news channel, and raving ad homonym near psychopaths to seed conclusion ahead of reason emotionalized perspectives, to grab these very natural safety impulses that are native to humankind. Others think that if someone says they are a Christian (of the right kind) they nearly automatically get their vote. Others think if the person has unions behind them they must-be standing up for the regular Jane and Joe—WRONG.

We need information reform to be informed and honest citizens who can perceive what our true interest are. And we need election reform, so that money is not the deciding factor over the spread of ideas, political or otherwise.

We are a nation that can be true, right, defended, understanding of the world, and free as can be, and have a military with the respect of a priesthood, not a toy for political and ideological opportunist.