I'm already there, have been for a long time. The difficulty I have is the translation of those ideas into a form palatable for contemporary Western Philosophy.

Yes.

Quite.
Is this a philosophical discipline, or is there literature relating to it?

Reasserting one’s sovereignty is always the right thing to do. The EU is more a centralized technocracy which itself deals only with political elites. There is no popular vote, no democracy. I think the instinct for democratic choice and the entrenched reliance on common law procedures has led to a deep suspicion of the European ideal.

I agree with ZhouBoTong, that is a universal nationalism, the sort of idealism which has resulted in Brexit. If one looks at the realities on the ground, there is a large price to pay for such ideals. For starters it is probably going to lead to the break up of the UK. Why on earth would one want to do that.

Now we have Johnson imposing a kind of exit from the EU which will be decided by a handful of partisan people who are demonstrably putting party before country. While arrogantly telling Scotland that they can't leave the UK for similar reasons. The hipocricy is breathtaking, but that along with the duplicity, deceit and lies is the day to day reality of our government. They are far worse than the worst excesses of Trump, who is trying to do the right thing, which is not easy for someone who is not a politician. There are large numbers of people in the UK who are disgusted with our sham of a government and who realise that we are going to be worse off not only economically, but our integrity and reputation on the world stage is in tatters. And that being a member of the EU is far better than this farce.

What a great idea, I can't believe no one thought of doing something like that before.

I would point out though, that we have seeded very little sovereignty to the EU. But rather agree to work to the same rules on many things. Rather like in a trade agreement, but more integrated than that.

I agree with your overarching idea. In this scenario though any absolute being, is present with any limited being at all times and in all places and in any sense. So the limited person is in communion with all absolute beings eternally, were they to know it.

↪Brett

The trouble with Brexit bias, many of us don't know if it is right, or wrong. Was it the right thing to do, is it better for our country, is the EU going to collapse in debt, or are we. When one is so uncertain to then have xenophobic populism etc shoved down your throat doesn't feel right either way.

Well unless you're certain it was the right thing to do, in which case everything is rosy. But that can be nothing more than a wing and a prayer, because no one really knows if it was the right thing to do and if they think it was they are being deceitful in some way.

↪Brett
"And yet you argue against what Johnson has done. With what knowledge do you do that?"

That's easy, it's politics. But with Brexit, no one knows what the long consequences are either of staying in the EU, or leaving, it hasn't been done before and in a world in such flux no one really knows what's going to happen. It reminds me of captain Oates, on captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole. Who left the tent at a point of crisis in a ferocious blizzard saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time" and was never seen again. It is a haunting image of a person somewhere between life and death choosing oblivion. I get this sense of foreboding about Brexit, as do many others. Are we in a hipnotic state, blind folded, walking towards the clifftop?

I will paste this post into the Brexit thread, it should be there rather than here.

Stream of consciousness is an ecstatic state, more like the trance of a medium. What Trump is doing is showmanship, it might look the same but it is a charade, if he's claiming it's stream of consciousness. I don't think he is making that claim, I don't think he wants to disguise his showmanship, it works and people like it.

Just talking without a script.

Iran finally admits it shot down the jet. Incompetence.

All the more reason to enable Iran to move forward without feeling the need for nuclear weapons. Fat chance of that now.

Yes, I can see the kogs turning behind his eyes. I am familiar with stream of consciousness and what I see is someone who is not reciting a prepaired speech, but improvising. That is not stream of consciousness.

I will approach the issue from left field. I once had a visionary dream in which I was taken up by Christ and experienced my past and future, the past and future, laid out on the ground (in the dream I visualised this as the houses in my street with the roofs taken off and as one moved across a room one would have been traversing time.), as I was lifted I saw more of the landscape, hence a broader space of time. The Christ communicated to me in such a way without speaking, but rather like the almost telepathic understanding between a mother and baby.

My point being that reality is probably not what it seems, spatial, temporal conditions may only be a function of something else more real like a soul, or ethereal world. This suggests, or implies an atemporal, unextended (spatially) reality. But also transcendent and possibly omniscient from our position within it. Allowing everything to exist at once.

I think the country was in a state of startled chaos, anything could have happened. It doesn't bode well for when they get their nuclear bomb.

The trouble with Brexit bias, many of us don't know if it is right, or wrong. Was it the right thing to do, is it better for our country, is the EU going to collapse in debt, or are we. When one is so uncertain to then have xenophobic populism etc shoved down your throat doesn't feel right either way.

Well unless you're certain it was the right thing to do, in which case everything is rosy. But that can be nothing more than a wing and a prayer, because no one really knows if it was the right thing to do and if they think it was they are being deceitful in some way.

Question: why do we talk about Trump, but not Putin's persecution of homosexuals or Chinese concentration camps?

We don't talk about it because it hasn't been fed to us by the media. We talk about what we have been fed. People like me in the UK are acutely aware of this because we were onlookers while our media was controlled and manipulated by xenophobic rightwing media organisations during the Brexit process. Hence my rant against The Daily Mail earlier today( in the why do you think the US is going to war with Iran thread).

Now I am sensitised to this influence I can see how the media organisations are feeding us a narrative. The reasons why we get this story over the concentration camps in China should be analysed. At first sight it seems to me that rolling news looks for breaking news and when a story comes up which reaches a certain threashold of importance, it then gets blanket coverage and we all talk about it to the expense of all the other stories. This results in media organisations throwing all their weight behind certain stories, while ignoring others. This bias can be manipulated and was during the Brexit process.

Another side effect of this system is that we can become obsessed, or anxious about certain stories which are deemed to be of importance. Again this has a direction over time and can be manipulated.

We should make ourselves aware of the bias in the media we consume.

In the UK people are starting to plant trees, our biggest land owner National Trust has already started a programme of mass planting, with volunteer groups among their members. I am interested in ideas around permaculture and forest farming. It will however be a slow progress to alter the industrialised farming practices we have. Also there are a growing number of land owners embarking on re-wilding their land with remarkly quick increases in bio diversity.

This is as we know against the backdrop of the global crisis and I don't think we can in the UK anticipate just how our climate is going to change. This is due to the unpredictability of what will happen to the Gulf Stream, whether it will switch off, when and what would be the consequences. Will we have longer colder winters, will they be dry, or have significant snow fall. Will we have long dry summers, or changeable wet summers. We seem to be getting all these conditions in what feels like a rollercoaster at the moment, with them getting gradually more extreme. The record highest December temperature was recorded a few weeks ago at 18 degrees Celsius. I expect a cold spell with close to record low temperatures in a few weeks.

I believe that it would be naive to think that Iran does not already have a nuclear bomb. Knowledge obtained can rarely be eliminated.

Yes, I had considered that, the Russians could have given them one. I don't see why they would not want to tell the world about it. Because the main purpose of nuclear bombs seems to be to waive them in other people's faces.

And in the end we'll talk about Iranian nukes as we do about North Korean nukes. And life goes on.

And what will Israel talk about?

I answered the point in the first sentence. The second paragraph was an off topic criticism of a newspaper.

Going back to the point. I know what Iran used to be like and I felt the pain in 1979. But the US had become involved by that point and it may have been unsustainable, the imposition of western values in these countries. If the US had treated the Iranians with respect in the interim as they deserved, they might be best of friends by now, I know this is a big if. But the distrust, duplicity and superior arrogance of the US has not gone down well in the region. This may now be the end game.

The problem being what happens next if the US pulls out?

I know the Shah wasn’t too popular, but people forget what Iran was once like.

This is geopolitics, America shouldn't have meddled in Iran in the first place.

I noticed you linked to The Daily Mail, one of the worst bigoted racist gutter rags in Britain, it should be burnt in the streets. I appreciate you probably didn't know this, my rant was not personal, or directed at you. People who don't live in the UK should be aware of the gutter press we have to put up with. I note Meghan Markle is moving to Canada now.

The winner here is the developing Russia/China axis with Iran and North Korea as untouchable assets harassing and undermining US interests

Yes Trump is pushing Iran over to the other side, a tragic miscalculation. Iran was key to the whole region, it straddles the underbelly of Russia. So with a ring of client states across the Middle East and into Asia, Russia will bare down on all the other small states in the region. Eventually the US will retreat and bury their head in the sand back home.

Iran is incompetent

Imagine if they had nuclear weapons.

For what it's worth I supported Obama's Iran deal, imperfect as it was. For someone who wants to get us out of the wars

Agreed, it was imperfect and did perhaps give Iran to much space to get involved in the proxy wars and enrich some uranium. But I thought it was as good as it was going to get. Iran was become more prosperous again and would at some point become more moderate on their own. Rubbing them up the wrong way as Trump is doing is uniting them against him. The US may now have to withdraw from the region.

Have you ever considered the events of the last few days between America and Iran showing a greater understanding and appreciation of each other than ever before?

I must admit, I really don't know what to say now.

It now seems that it was the air defence system that mis-identified the flight as a hostile, which does seem plausible

Plausible until one considers that the missiles where positioned, or at least covering the flight path of domestic flights in and out of the airport.

I agree, that it was Bush and Blair who ramped it up over there. But the meddling in the region goes back a long way. As I see it, the US has always taken to hard a line, had they worked more constructively with Iran following the gulf war and with some respect things would be just fine by now. It was always going to be a struggle to prevent them getting a nuclear bomb, but I do think the region could have been calmed down and the way forward positive by now. But the US always takes this tough line and rubs proud leaders in the region up the wrong way. Now Trump has lobbed a stink bomb in there for what appears to be purposes of electioneering. Also he is endorsing Israel which is getting increasing paranoid and tetchy.

I dont see the point, I can't see any way out of this for Trump. Well apart from his accepting that Iran will become a nuclear power, perhaps he can live with that. I doubt Israel can.

So you've seen the light, that's a weight off my mind.

I have already answered this in reply to your questions and NOS4A2 yesterday.

To summarise, any curb on Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb has now been removed and an incentive (numerous incentives) put in its place to acquire it more quickly. Also by taking such a hard line Trump is in danger of pushing Iran into the hands of the Russians. An outcome which probably won't end well.

He probably didn't answer because it's a stupid question. How could we possibly know?

NOS4A2's answer to the question was that Trump is now going to strike a tougher deal with the Iranians.

Fat chance of that, sounds like he's got as little idea about what to do next, as Trump.

I'm not partisan, I'm over the pond. My interest is how the Middle East is going to kick off. My only concern is that there isn't a nuclear conflagration in the region. Its looking more likely now. Especially if this is the beginning of the US moving out of the region.

I wonder why, today, Trump is insisting that the Boeing 737 was shot down over Tehran 'by mistake'? How does he know that? Would it be because if it was actually some hothead with a shoulder-launched missile avenging Suleiman's death, then it suggests unwanted consequences from the assassination?

Good point, I saw that press conference. Trump was at pains to say that it was not a US operation that brought down the plane, not our mistake, that it was probably an accident by the other side. It's a rough neighbourhood. He did look a bit guilty to me, I think he knew by that point that it was a small scale missile strike probably a small group of hotheads like you say, they were positioned in the flight path of aircraft taking off from Tehran airport. It doesn't look like it was a mistake that they set up their missiles there. Also some media are suggesting that it was anti aircraft missiles attacking a suspected US airforce plane. Again, that was unlikely to happen in the flightpath of the airport.

It's looking like there are two people with the blood of those airline passengers on their hands, Trump and the those hotheads with that missile. Perhaps they were given the nod by the leaders, who then put out the press reports that it was an engine fire, afterwards. Outwitting The US, killing over 70 western citizens in reprisal for the assassination of Sulimani, in such a way that the US was found to be impotent, simply because it wasn't clear who actually killed them. This sets the stage for many more such accidents committed by rogue elements etc.

You seem to have the same attitude to this issue as to climate change. Nothing to important, it will all sort itself out soon enough, folk are sensible enough and will come to some accommodation eventually.

I will ask you what I asked NOS4A2 and didn't get much of an answer, how will Trump prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb?

Folk should realise that israel is paranoid of Iran and looks to the US to pacify them and prevent them acquiring a nuclear bomb. Trump has just lost any leverage he had with Iran, they are now going to acquire the bomb at the first opportunity and the only way Trump can stop them is to go to war.

He has already fought back the 'biggest tragedy in history', the collapse of the Soviet Union, by annexing Crimea ...and annexing parts of Georgia back to Russia. Those were popular moves with many Russians

Yes and we already know that Putin has been characterising Europe and the US as aggressors against Russia in the Russian media. This fires up his base as it portrays him as a strong man look after their interests. He also played a smart move by going to help Assad in Syria, giving him more kudos and giving him his entry back onto the world stage. Iran is ripe for the picking now that Trump is going to strangle Iran.

When I say Brexit will be done, I mean we will have legally left the EU on that date. Before that date we are still members and could in theory revoke article 50. After that day, our membership is history and to remain in any sense of the word is impossible.

You may be right about the next stage and Iran, but I don't think Trump is going to back down. The problem with Iran is that they are now going to get a nuclear bomb, which the US will not allow under any circumstances. The reasons for this are complex and include the paranoia of Israel. In fact I expect that Israel will probably launch a preemptive strike on Iran before the US if it looks like the Iranians are close to acquiring the bomb. So in such scenarios, it is not Iran who starts the war, all they do is continue with their ambition to acquire the bomb and I see no sign that they are going to stop in that.

I agree with the first paragraph. With the second it shows that johnson is still running scarred of appearing with, or endorsing Trump. He is probably on the phone to Trump making excuses.

More importantly Trump will be waiting for Johnson's endorsement, especially if there is an escalation in tension. If Johnson wants his trade deal he has to get into bed with Trump, which will require committing UK soldiers in any crackpot wars Trump gets involved in. If he commits troops, the protests will dwarf the stop the war march we had the last time.

I expect the Johnson has been begging Trump to hold off any escalation until after leaving Day on January 31st. Once we're past that point Johnson will come out of hiding and get into bed with Trump, because Brexit will be done and there will be nothing anyone can do about it.

We could go back and forth over a lot of those issues, for a few pages and it probably wouldn't leave anyone any the wiser. I was speculating on what would happen should the US turn its back. There would be a vacuum of sorts.

I don't think we should underestimate what is going through Putin's mind. But he does seem to be testing the borders of the territory that is has influence over. It would be remarkable if he weren't looking at the chaos over the pond and looking for opportunities.

When I said "breathing down necks", I was referring to a future scenario in which there is a ring of Russian client states around the whole region. It might not happen, but is it a risk.

If the US turns away, then Russia will fill the void. They are spreading their influence through Ukraine, Turkey and Syria already. If they get into bed with Iran, then Iraq will be swallowed up by Iran. They may look at Afghanistan again.

They will be breathing down the necks of Europe, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Where’s the benefit for them in this?

To re-establish their role on the world stage as a super power. They probably feel diminished now that a number of Eastern European states have now joined the EU, who were once under their control. You know, geopolitical stuff.

I don't know, but I expect they will want to become an influential friend to a crescent of countries across the Middle East. They talk of Syria as a client state, Turkey has been cooperating with Russia and falling out with the US. As the US strangles Iran with sanctions etc and a promise for a much tougher nuclear deal than the Obama deal, they will look for friends to bolster their economy and prestige. A perfect moment for Russia to step forward. They might even lend Iran a nuclear bomb. This would then enable Iran to begin to dominate the region with a nuclear power behind them. Giving Russia a dominant presence in the region and forcing any US, or European presence remaining out.

Looks like a win win to me and a lose lose for NATO.

Quite so, it's populism on steroids again, showmanship designed to deflect from the impeachment scandal and win an election. Trump doesn't know how to do anything else, in reality he's The King of Comedy.

Unfortunately by his self obsessed behaviour, he is losing the US presence in the Middle East, leaving a vacuum to be filled by Russia, or China. I expect Russia will make the first move, as they have already been showing their presence in the Middle East. This is a big prize for them, because they lost the East European states to the EU. Ever since they have been looking to expand into the countries around the periphery of Europe, what better prize is there than Iran?

I expect in about ten years we will have a proxy war stand off between a US backed Israel and a Russian backed Iran, both sides bristling with nuclear weapons.

All thanks to The King of Comedy Donald Trump, ( read Rupert Pupkin).