Should I start a thread for discussing what education and the military-industrial complex (New World Order) has to do with being like the Germany we defeated in world wars. — Athena

Sure. Correlate that to Jefferson's interest in education, though: dynamic tension between an assimilation agenda and democracy's need for educated voters.

Where did you get your information about education? — Athena

Granted, I haven't taken any classes on comparative American/European education systems. As far as where I got such information I have... I suppose just being in the education system as student or worker for quite a few years was a source. Reading about education, of course. Discussions.

I will readily grant that the American education system (K-12, particularly) is aimed at several quite unofficial goals which dominate: training students to be compliant, adopt the mainline Corporate-American view (what you are calling groupthink), giving them minimal literacy skills, and so on. College is generally more demanding. But there are two educational systems: one for maybe 10-20% of the students who will become elite operatives, and another for the 80-90% who will be cogs in the system. Cogs -- if they are not too unlucky. The really unlucky ones won't even be cogs.

I started first grade in 1952; Things have changed quite a bit since then--like, gotten worse. When and where do people break out of the groupthink mold? Well, some do it in college to some degree; some fall in with radicals of various kinds who crack open the mold; some people are natural rebels; some people have horrible disillusioning experiences which break the mold. Had I not gone to college, had I not met some left wing radicals after college, and so on, I too would have been lost to groupthink. Well, us enlightened few just have a small set of group thinkers.

Should I start a thread for discussing what education and the military-industrial complex (New World Order) has to do with being like the Germany we defeated in world wars. — Athena

Yes, why don't you do this. I'm a little doubtful about the German nazi era being all that similar.

goats be used, but don't deer live in the forest and don't we kill them? — Athena

I don't think deer are a big factor in the California forest. A saw a figure of about 500,000 deer population in northern California. Minnesota's hunting harvest is about 300,000 -- never mind the population. Deer don't clear the forest; they don't eat small trees, bark, etc. unless there is nothing else. In southern Minnesota, especially, they have very refined tastes, preferring to eat ornamental plants and gardens in the summer, corn in the fall, and then... various stuff in the winter. A lot of people feed deer, or the deer join cattle that are fed outside. And people feed them, so they come around which people like to watch.

Goats would work, I suppose, but not during a severe drought when nothing much is growing. Goats also tend to eat down to the dirt -- which was a problem in the ancient world; where a lot of goats were raised, there tended to be severe soil erosion because the goats grazed too close to the ground.

There are limits to what can be done; many forested areas in the world are flat and working on the ground is relatively easy. California is very wrinkly (thanks to plate tectonics) and many of the hill/mountainsides are steep and high. The insects killing the trees (by spreading diseases) are very hard to control over the western-continent sized area of the western US and Canada. Global warming is going to aggravate drought and insect infestation.

"they have very refined tastes, preferring to eat ornamental plants and gardens in the summer, corn in the fall, and then... various stuff in the winter."

:lol: Yeah, I know. I once drove for meals on wheels. Several of my stops were up the side of a mountain and I learned the only flower these people could have is the rhododendron. The deer are very bold standing their ground with their young, munching on the nicely watered grass, and casually looking at people who drive up. Another problem these people on the mountain have is the trees planted when their homes were built, grew and now block their view of the valley. By law, they can not remove these trees. Sometimes, too much of a good thing isn't good. :rofl:

I love your explanation of the different animal gracing habits. I think that would mean smaller groups of goats moved frequently and maybe being selective in where they are used. Like I to daydream of having a few goats and spending my days watching them. But with this old body that may not be practical. However, for the young, living in the forest with the intention of keeping it healthy and going on a spiritual quest maybe ideal.

Our lives built on an industrial economy have advantages and disadvantages. What if some of us could be devoted to other things, like nature and our families? Wouldn't it be nice to experience living for something else rather than a paycheck and material things?

America is ALSO Europe. Europe is not a geographical concept; it´s a civilization. Before Muslim invasions, Europa was just a princess in a fairytale. Europe is Classic Mediterranean civilization + all political and cultural institutions to fight against islam, including the forced Christianization and civilization of Northern Europe; until our complete surrender to the Arab ideology of peace and love.

If the climate is changing, which it probably is, then the ants, termites, and humans on the Earth have got nothing to do with it and cannot prevent it or change it.

I have to admit that I'm having trouble interpreting the point of the idea you're trying to express here. I was only trying to offer you the mildest possible rebuke for the fact that the idea you were expressing -- 'Europeans are smarter and more educated, people should come to Europe if they want to learn about politics' -- reflects a particular sort of colonial mentality which still lingers in a lot of European cultures and which I suspect you would do well to examine critically.

I don´t know about colonial mentality, my country never had those and it´s a concept a little foreign and strange for me. Europeans ARE smarter and more educated than Americans. This is not my opinion, is just a fact, that I put in contrast with another fact, which is that Americans still have a better democratic regime than most European countries. Sharing objective data about the world says nothing in itself about my "mentality". Perhaps you have a perceptual filter that makes you relate the speaking of certain facts of the world with particular ideologies. This is only natural, we all have these, and the thing to do is to check if the statements are true and verifiable; that way we can understand that we were applying our subjetive filter and adding meaning that is not there. I´m working on this healthy habit myself.

Speaking of Trump, would we be better off without daylight saving time?

Okay, I see Deigo T also made a cultural statement that would be fun to chew on. I like Frank's suggestion of beginning with Jefferson's interest in education. :grin: I feel like a kid in a candy store and there is too much to choose from but it all is the same. At least we all are western civilization and this is different from the east. But Islam is more western than eastern. :chin:

It is done. Look for Education, Democracy, and Liberty in the political philosophy forum.

Kill daylight savings time. Or at least end it sooner and start it later.

Europeans ARE smarter and more educated than Americans. — DiegoT

Berlusconi. Enough said.

Americans still have a better democratic regime than most European countries. — DiegoT

It helps to be specific here. Which European countries are you talking about. The Netherlands has its problems but it's functionally a better democracy than the US. Is the overwhelming overrepresentation of certain US states per capita in the senate democratic? Is it democratic the person with a majority of votes loses an election? Etc.

You're offering up statements pretending they are facts.

when I think of democracy, I do not usually think of voting. Voting is just a technique to gather information about the citizens´ will on different issues. It´s not democracy; in fact elections can be made to work AGAINST democracy, by using the ritual as a personal sign that a given citizen gives up his fraction of sovereignty in favour of the powers in the regime.

Elections are important, but isolated they are meaningless. And they are only a minimum: together with paying taxes, it´s the least a citizen can do to satisfy his duties to the regime. Democracy properly understood in societies with masses of hundreds of millions of citizens, it´s a system that tries to afford as many personal differences as it can without jeopardizing the system, and implements channels for those differences to communicate with the system and contribute updates that in its turn influence the internal and external behaviour of a society.

It is comparable with our living bodies, as our trillions of cells, bacteria, viruses all have their say in the analysis of the state of the whole and its behaviour. Of course, some cells matter more than others, and neurons or bacteria in the gut have a greater influence in our thoughts and emotions than red cells or bacteria on our skin (unless there´s an illness). A system where everybody has the same weight in decisions is not democracy, is an indiferentiated expanse of plankton. That is why elections and taxes must be the bottom level of common participation, but then there are other paths a citizen can use to participate more if s/he is committed more.

In these other paths, the United States is traditionally stronger than Western Europe; freedom of speech, economic enterprise, judicial system...

Elections are important, but isolated they are meaningless. And they are only a minimum: together with paying taxes, it´s the least a citizen can do to satisfy his duties to the regime. Democracy properly understood in societies with masses of hundreds of millions of citizens, it´s a system that tries to afford as many personal differences as it can without jeopardizing the system, and implements channels for those differences to communicate with the system and contribute updates that in its turn influence the internal and external behaviour of a society.

It is comparable with our living bodies, as our trillions of cells, bacteria, viruses all have their say in the analysis of the state of the whole and its behaviour. Of course, some cells matter more than others, and neurons or bacteria in the gut have a greater influence in our thoughts and emotions than red cells or bacteria on our skin (unless there´s an illness). A system where everybody has the same weight in decisions is not democracy, is an indiferentiated expanse of plankton. That is why elections and taxes must be the bottom level of common participation, but then there are other paths a citizen can use to participate more if s/he is committed more. — DiegoT

What's meaningless is the above two paragraphs.

In these other paths, the United States is traditionally stronger than Western Europe; freedom of speech, economic enterprise, judicial system... — DiegoT

Again a statement based on nothing. What are you banging on about? Western Europe should introduce freedom of speech for corporations? Western Europe should do away with the social security it provides its citizens because it will improve GDP? Western Europe should appoint judges who lie on the record to their highest courts? Exactly what is your point? Or are you just disgruntled because of all the problems in Spain? Or perhaps specifically Catalonia?

In these other paths, the United States is traditionally stronger than Western Europe; freedom of speech, economic enterprise, judicial system... — DiegoT

Is it? At least the US is more corrupt than many European countries.

By the Corruption Perception Index, the least corrupt states are in order (with European countries in bold):

1. Denmark
1. New Zealand
3. Finland
4. Sweden
5. Switzerland
6. Norway
7. Singapore
8. Netherlands
9. Canada
10. Germany
10. Luxembourg
13. Australia
14. Iceland
.
.
.
18. the USA

Then there's the Democracy Index. That goes the following (again European countries in bold):

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Sweden
4. New Zealand
5. Denmark
6. Ireland
6. Canada
8. Australia
9. Finland
9. Switzerland
11. Netherlands
12. Luxembourg
.
.
.
21. the USA

Now what is 1st or 4th on that list doesn't actually matter much, but what countries are in single digits and what is 18th or 21st the differences do start to show. And do notice that it's the same countries on top of both charts as corruption simply means that the country isn't a democratic justice state. (The only exception here is Singapore: doesn't have much corruption, but cannot be said to be very democratic.)

Then you have a bi-party system. Is that truly democratic when you have the political parties that can be able to be in power one centrist-leftist leaning party and a far-right party (by European standards)? Is it real democracy that Americans don't even believe in third parties being able to make it to the Congress and act as a viable alternative as the two parties have made it so difficult? And how do you argue that freedom of speach is so different in the US from Western Europe?

21. the USA — ssu

The only reason they still get to 21 is because most of the corruption in the US is legal.

Kill daylight savings time. Or at least end it sooner and start it later.
8h — Bitter Crank

I agree.

So Trump's new fight is with Chief Justice John Roberts and the "total & complete disaster 9th Circuit".

Of course Trump has a history of attacking the justice system, yet Roberts argument of there not being "Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges" does sound little bit funny especially after the last SCOTUS appointment. Unfortunately the faith of Americans in the independence of judicial branch has for long been eroding and not only because of Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR23kYkeSgEfY3z-1l0J3MzF-JaBl3GsE6KqgFfZV_qIpJt1mwTB1NN4eyQ

I just can't help adding seventeen and six and getting twenty-three on this one.

Trump's view on this implies he doesn't think justice is possible, because it all comes down to the judge being antagonistic or sympathetic to the person or position. Trump doesn't accept, or doesn't understand, rule of law.

Let´s suppose Trump is corrupt, a liar, and possibly a reptile in human disguise. It´s still the American´s President, elected in real elections, unlike our president in Spain who´sliterally the head of a coup d´etat declared in Barcelona last year.
Trump the guy in tv shows and public soirees can be laughed at, but Trump the President, like any other American president, needs citizens that aren´t stupid all the time and whining all the time. Both Republicans and Democrats need to support him and his government, especially in difficult measures, and stop watching TV showmen and movie stars that for some reason think they know about how to run the country way better than the average citizen while their real lives are managed poorly.

Stop being so decadent. Save your country people. And for Dems in particular: if the next president is a Democrat, how will you like that Republican voters behaved with her like you behave with Trump? Would it be "okay" to call the next Dem president "Orangutan", "Nazi", "idiot"? Grow up for God´s sake.

Looks like Mueller's got a lot of evidence. And now, Manafort's cooperation, even if it wasn't a charade, would be moot.

What is entailed by supporting Trump?

It's normal to have policy disagreements. Surely you aren't expecting us to support his nasty rhetoric, like name calling, or his labelling unflattering news as "fake", or proclaiming the press the "enemy of the people." You can't expect us to support his disdain for the rule of law.

Respect the office? Sure. The office is bigger than the man. What else?

I assume you are all smart human beings because you comment in a philosophy forum and shit. You must understand that, if people voted for a real ape, say a chimpanzee, that what you´d get and you would need to support the chimp so that he makes good decisions and cause the least diplomatic trouble possible in the situation.

If Trump makes good reasonable decisions (rule of thumb: any political measure a Hollywood star doesn´t like/understand will probably qualify as such) he needs your explicit support. If he can do better, he needs to be told so politely and recommended an alternative path. A president with a very hostile opposition is be forced to "retrieve" to identitarian and populist measures and rethoric; a leader who can count with support from his antagonists now and then has more political margin to implement plans that are not "so safe". The real freedom of action of a president is always smaller than we think. And it has to be acted upon options only an elite can really see, because most of us simply do not have the real information. There´s so much intelligence, data management, hidden agendas, projection of scenarios that need to be taken into account, that I wonder how on Earth can we suppose that we know better just by half-reading a digital newspaper or watching the telly.

Politics is social Ethics. In real ethical practice, you do not have ideal dilemmas, where all imaginable options are available and their outcome is certain and clear. What you get is a very narrow set of real choices you have to ponder assuming many risks. In Politics too you have very very few real options, and you try all the time to minimize risks. Only real mad leaders, good or evil, take many chances. Most leaders, good or evil, are compelled to choose among paths they would not even consider in their previous lives.

A wild, rabid opposition like the one you are giving to Trump makes Trump´s mandate a lot worse, with less options available, and an increased political risk in all of them. That way, you are getting the worst Trump you can get, the version that can survive in such insane climate; always defensive, always suspicious, never confident that he can get any speck of support from anybody but his fan base that is always hungry for shocking statements. This is no good. It´s time to give the man a break and try to make the most of his years in office.

I´m neither conservative nor progressive, I quitted, really quitted for good this bidimensional political plane seven years ago. I´m not taking sides with Trump or with the Republican party; I just want the United States to continue in existence because Europe is falling and some part of the Western civilization needs to survive. If that loony Ocasio Cortez or another candidate became the next president, my position will remain the same. Precisely because the Office is bigger than the person and Society and its future bigger than the Office.

I strongly disagree that we should support policies we disagree with. That is beyond absurd- no President has ever received that kind of support.

Trump makes no attempt to achieve consensus or compromise. He bullies, makes threats, and denigrates those who disagree with him daily. Much of his behavior is inexcusable, and what I think is absurd is that people defend his behavior just because they like his policies. Everyone should recognize bad behavior and call it out, even if that behavior results in policies they desire.

During the campaign, supporters extolled his willingness to be "politically incorrect." They didn't seem to realize that this guaranteed he would piss people off and they would react.

Two wrongs don't make a right. We should not respond to bad behavior with more bad behavior. But we should still call out that bad behavior.

I would be happy if Trump's policies have a positive impact, even if they are policies I disagree with. I'm doubtful, but I will give him his due if it works out. But it will never be OK to be a jerk.

If I voted in a Chimp for President, I would not defend his throwing his shit at people despite that being Chimp-normal. Trump supporters should not defend Trump's shit-throwing either, even though it is Trump-normal.

Relativist, you need to re-read my last comment, this time trying to make the most of it, really putting some effort into comprehending what I say in it. A forum is not just about speaking our minds, is also trying to grasp what other members want to convey. We are all learning from each other.
You know I´m not asking for inconditional support for any president; please read again.

Further to my Guardian link above, here it is being questioned:

https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2018/11/28/growing-calls-for-guardian-editor-in-chief-to-resign-after-the-paper-publishes-massive-fake-news-story/

I'm holding my breath, and exploring possible worlds...

Am I failing to provide the sort of support you think I should give?

For what it's worth, I'm not pulling for Trump to fail. I related this in a post I made awhile back (here).

The Guardian says they were told this by two sources. That is not "fake news". It may be false, but fake news is the spreading of stories that have been thoroughly discredited - like the story about vaccinations causing autism. As far as I can tell, this story hasn't been discredited - it's simply been denied by Assange, which is hardly surprising. Whether it's true or false, no one's going to be convicted on the basis of there being two unnamed source telling a newspaper.

Think we could figure out a way to get that million bucks?