Freedom of expression is a terrible idea because it is far too inclusive. In your list of what we must have to have freedom, you did not include education for good moral judgment, and liberty is not possible without that. Uneducated people can be like children whose freedom of expression can be as an undisciplined three-year-old. Our dignity, honor, and ability to govern ourselves begins with education.

Hopefully much more will be said about the democratic model for industry. The US adopted England's autocratic model for industry and this is dreadful, especially today with international corporations and the power of Microsoft and Walmart.

I want a revolution that means education for democracy and using the democratic model for industry. The enemy of democracy is autocracy and the place to challenge the enemy is within the boundaries of the US.

Nicely said. The American Revolution began as a consciousness revolution long before the New Land was discovered or any shots were fired. You mentioned the socialist motivated revolutions and these follow the religious revolution from Catholicism to Protestantism. While the scientific revolution strongly led to the belief in rule by reason as opposed to rule by someone chosen by god to be the authority over us. I am a little disappointed that even philosophy forums aren't saying much about this history and change, and hopefully, this forum is doing better than others.

Last night I stead up late to watch a show about the Puritans and it explained the physical hardships they faced how the native American population had been devastated by the disease of earlier explorers, but almost nothing was said of their reasoning for believing they had a better way for people to live together. Not one word was said of Calvinism. What a huge disappointment that show was.

What you said in another post is even better. What is considered good manners here? How many replies before someone else has posted, are acceptable? Education is everything! I could spend all day writing about that. When education transmits a culture for good moral judgment, then and only then is liberty possible, because only highly moral people can have liberty. We have forgotten that and become very authoritarian, like the enemy we defended our democracy against. Now we seem to think dying our hair blue and covering our bodies with tattoos and smoking our weed of choice is freedom. :shade:

None of us have complete word freedom. Plenty of people in the US think they do, but lately, more and more people are losing their careers because of something they said. :gasp: More serious is not being aware of the possible harm done by one's words because then wrongs are said and we lose our liberty as authority over the people increases. Forums have moderators to prevent the harm of poorly chosen words. I must admit I do not know your situation and it pains me when others are concerned about their lack of freedom of speech. However, what is important for you to say? Can it be said in an acceptable way? As my family tells me when they object to what I say "it is not what you said, but how you said it".

What freedom do you not have? I am trying to understand. In the US poverty does not leave a person much freedom. I have had jobs that violate our liberty in a very serious way and when we live from pay check to pay check we must surrender to the authority of the employer. I am deeply concerned that we are losing our liberty and do not have enough understanding of such matters to defend our liberty.

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. I regret bringing the subject up in this thread but think awareness of what happened is important. Closer to the topic, in a democracy, science should trump the Trump. China had a leader who caused great suffering because his good intentions were not supported by science. Mao and his poor advisers lead him to ordering seeds be planted very deep, and the result was famine. This can be likened to Trump's denial of global warming and all the decisions being made that contribute to global warming.

As I understand moral decisions, they are based on science and I regret that understanding of good moral judgment is not shared.

Where did you get your information about education? :chin: I have studied the history of education and Germany because we adopted German Education. I am glad to provide references. But I don't think I should have brought up education and the ramifications of change in this thread. I apologize.

It appears the favorite subject of the OP is forest management, not Trump foolishness, and here is a science-based explanation of the problem and what can be done.

https://blog.nature.org/science/2016/08/02/maintaining-healthy-forests-takes-more-than-planting-trees/

According to the article, the problem is in part the result of replanting trees. It has been suggested goats be used, but don't deer live in the forest and don't we kill them? I wonder what good forest management would look like from the perspective the animals that live in the forest? Personally :hearts: I love the notion of living for the good of the earth.

:rofl: Our understanding is best when we have a good sense of humor.

I have been watching videos on how our brains work and the importance of exercising both our brains and our bodies. There are so many things we can do to improving our thinking- this is true for children in school and for the aged.

Politically speaking, it is how we prepare our young for thinking that concerns me most. I am convinced the 1958 National Defense Education Act, and replacing education for independent thinking with groupthink and leaving moral training to the church, is what lead to the election of Trump and that same education many years ago, in a different country, resulted in the election of someone Trump seems to be role modeling. The other country was also a Christian republic. What made the US republic different was classical philosophy and that was replaced with German philosophy when we adopted the German model of education for technology. Now we want a strong leader who will resolve our problems for us. :lol: Our bottom line is no longer what is moral but the dollar and our personal, short-term wants. Let our grandchildren pay for this and deal with the problem we leave to them. Technology can resolve all our problems and our economy is growing. Don't worry :zip:

"You are the only (one) responsible for your decisions and the only one who will suffer its consequences."

Unfortunately, or perhaps, fortunately, our purchases affect the whole world. People in a democracy must understand the power of their decisions and the responsibility that goes with them. It is a mistake to think our decisions affect only ourselves.

If capitalism is the best depends on how well educated the citizens are, and this includes education in higher order thinking skills and making moral judgments. If the citizens are not well educated there needs to be authority over them.

Not only is an armed revolution morally questionable but if there is not a revolution of consciousness, the destruction is unlikely to make anything better. The revolution must be in our consciousness if we are to manifest the good.

It is our duties to the universe that we act on what is right. Perhaps our action seems relatively powerless and that the will of average citizens does not seem to matter but never forget the pen is mightier than the sword. We outnumber those in power and united we stand, divided we fall. As long as we have freedom of speech we can attempt to unite others behind what is right, and they can unite others behind what is right. Our failure to accept this responsibility will lead to our doom because only when we do what is right will we get good results. I am afraid the US has chosen some bad presidents with bad consequences for the whole world. I wish we all understood what reason and science have to with manifesting a better reality.

I am old and do like the insinuation that being old is being stupid. Yesterday I bought postures to put my wall for my great-grandchildren and one reads...."Not to know is bad...But not to wish to know is worse." That is especially so when the person aspires to be the president of the US. I think only with humor can we find something good in our present situation, and laugh so we don't cry.

That is hilarious! I live in Oregon a forest and timber state. I would love to see Trump sweeping our forest floor. I don't think Trump has a good understanding of how nature works but he is great for a good laugh. :lol:

I must take issue with these words.....
"Whatever else is the case, the freedoms and rights you refer to are created, defined and enforced by humans. They have no existence in the scientific physical universe other than as human-created concepts/ideas."

I think understanding our animal nature and our evolution to huge civilizations, is important to our understanding of reality. What you said appears true today, but our reality today does not come from nature. Our reality today is man-made. Not even a god with chosen people can be held responsible for this reality.

Humans are social animals like the apes and we have a very limited ability to actually know each other. Our large civilizations are the result of violating the laws of nature. If we were not violating the laws of nature, our largest groups would be around 600 people and we not be sharing our territory with others. We would not have laws and law enforces but all matters would be personally resolved. However, we began violating the laws of nature about the time we developed religions/mythologies. Then being "one of us" meant sharing the same belief and explanation of life and our groups could become much larger. Only relatively recently did national and political ideas determine who we are and what it means to be one of us. This is an evolved, man-made reality, not exactly one created by a god or nature, and we need to be aware that we violating the laws of nature if we are going to manage this rationally.

Rereading what I said, I am displeased with my wording. To clarify, it is not my intention to criticize but to be factual. I don't see things as black or white, good or bad, but a mix of good and bad. My thinking tends to be complex. I believe it was the Prussians who militarized Germany and that the US has adopted the Prussian models of bureaucracy and education and is now what the US defended its democracy against. There is much good in this, but obviously some bad. What the OP said is the bads resulting from imitating Prussia in every significant way and dropping the transmission of our culture.

Instead of me arguing my points, I am very curious why you believe what you believe? I have gotten my information from books and I named two of the books that I think are the most important. Where did you get your information? LOL often when I disagree with someone, it is because the person lives in a different country, and then I feel foolish for speaking as though what I believe is unquestioned fact. I do not know the world from the point of view of those outside the US. I do not think I know everything that is important, but I do know somethings that might be important.

The children are waking so I have to close, but first I want to say, I have a very different understanding of Germany than you do. The book "The Anglo-German Problem" by Charles Sarolea is on line. It was written when Germany was mobilizing for the first world war. I consider this book to be one of the most important books ever written. We are on the same path Germany followed and there are parallels with the rise of Hitler and the rise of Trump that we to be aware of. This is directly related to the OP and the change in the US.

It is far, far more important to educate the children for citizenship and good moral judgment than education the handful of citizens who go to the college. When we mobilized for the first world war, Industry attempted to the close the schools claiming the war caused a labor shortage and that they were not getting their monies worth from education because they still had to train their new employees for their jobs. Teachers argued, it was those who understood our democracy and why it must be defended who were the first to sign up for the war, and that even if we won the war, our nation would be devastated if we did not continue educating the young to replace all those who die in the war. I got this information from the 1917 National Education Association Conference book.

The 1917 National Education Association Conference book is a record of ever speech made at the convention. One of the speakers was a military man who explained why our education must imitate Germany's education and for the first time in the US, education for technology was added to grade school education. This was vital to us winning the war. However, it was not until 1958 that we stopped transmitting our culture, and ramifications of this change in education, brings us to the OP,. Instead of seeing me criticizing what is so, would you please interpret what I am saying as saying what is so and saying there are consequences to the change in education? There are many benefits to the change. It is not either/or, this is good and this is bad. However, the social, economic and political ramifications need to be in our awareness.

I think our understanding of education is different. Education for citizenship began around the first camp fire. All groups of humans have a mythology about their existence that is passed on from generation to generation. The purpose of mythology is uniting people and preparing the young for adulthood.

I do not know what you mean by many multicultural non authoritarian cultures? However I do know of a people's who live on a island that is being covered by the ocean and they have to move. From what I saw in a TV show, these people had a paradise on their little island and they are very gentle and pleasant people. They are united by culture and there is concern of about what will happen to them when they are moved and must live with different people in a different environment. My point is culture is all that is needed when there are few people and every thing can be handled on a personal level. Also terrible things happen to people when all they know of life is their isolated culture and industrialist come in and change their way of life and destroy their culture. Where are the many non authoritarian multicultural people of which you speak? What is the size of their populations?

To become a citizen of the US an immigrant must take a citizenship test, right?

Education for logic and good moral judgment is very different from the original transmission of a groups mythology. That difference is what makes the West different from the East. Western cultures can trace their roots back to Athens and linear logic. The East has wholistic logic. During the Dark Ages, Western civilizations were consumed by Christianity and for a period of time, Christianity destroyed all that was not Christian and that included pagan temples that were places of learning, so linear logic had to be reintroduced to the West and democracy was not possible until this happened. However, a test of citizenship is more about our laws and mythology than about logic and moral judgment. And our education stopped being about good moral judgment and moral training was left to the church in 1958.

A problem with that explanation of logic and democracy is, small groups of people, such as those living on the island, are by nature democratic. Oh dear, now we are really in a logical mess aren't we? I hope others help us untie this logic knot. The God of Abraham religions are about a God's chosen people, including this God choosing who will be masters and who will be slaves and the religions are not exactly compatible with democracy, nor do they lead to the technological development that we pride ourselves in, but this might be a completely different subject? However, it is very relevant to the subject. I totally appreciate your style and that you have expanded my awareness of the logical problem. A huge thank you!

According to Trump and Trump supporters allowing people to enter the US and apply for sanctuary was not working. First Trump repeatedly tells these people are criminals and second he tells us once they are inside our country they do not return for their trials but become hidden in the US where they do terrible things. I am not agreeing with this reasoning, only repeating it as the reasoning for using the military to keep these people out. Oh, it is must be said, we began moving in this direction because of 9/11 and a fear of outsiders that is greater than it has ever been. 9/11 lead to major changes in our country, as well as the computer and ability to store much more information. This is something we need to speak of when speaking of how the US is changing, along with discussing what war has to to with education and the ramifications of the National Defense Education Act,

You are obviously a wise person. What a nice change from what I have been dealing with somewhere else. Wisdom begins with "I do not know." Now I will boldly state what I think I know and hopefully not make a fool of myself.

First question: meaning of ."Our liberty depends very much on a shared culture," There are two ways to have social order, culture or authority over the people. Culture with education for good moral judgment gives us liberty. Authority over the people takes away our liberty and a lack of good moral judgment is totally disastrous making authority over the people essential for the same reason we keep our loved on dogs on a leash to protect them unless they are well behaved and responsive to our spoken commands.

Second question of meaning "What makes a person a desirable citizen is an education for citizenship." We are not born with good reasoning, but only the potential for developing good reasoning. Without education for good moral judgment, we are not well prepared for civilization. When our potential for good reasoning is not developed we tend to be ruled by our emotions. People ruled by their emotions may or may not be the kind of people we want to be around, and even if they are very nice people, they are poorly fit for self-government. Self-government requires highly developed thinking skills.

Refugees do not always "come with the means or relationships to not need them (refugee camp?). If I interpret you correctly you are speaking of people who meet the criteria for entering the US. While some meet these criteria they seem to be coming faster then we can process them, and others who do not meet these criteria may need our help most. Fleeing refugees do not come with many benefits. There are language barriers and financial barriers and even cultural barriers. We are failing miserably to meet the needs of our own disadvantaged citizens, and this is a situation that cannot absorb an unlimited number of people for an indefinite period of time. Desperate people do desperate things and it is foolish to throw open our doors with no thought of the consequences. I work with the homeless and I know horror stories such as a woman with children taking refuge with a man, who turns out to be a child molester. A huge free-for-all with no thought of the consequences is not a good idea. And using our military to keep people out, and ignoring humanitarian needs is not right either.

Your subject has been the focus of my studies for over 30 years. Thomas Jefferson was adamant about the importance of education for a strong and united republic. Coming out of the Age of Enlightenment it was known only highly moral people can have liberty, however, they based that morality on reason, not religion.

The thoughts of the Roman statesman Cicero were essential reading for everyone interested in democracy and that supports the notion that the cause of doing wrong is ignorance, and right reasoning will lead to right action. This belief is vital to our liberty and democracy.

Originally education in the US had very little to do with education for technology. Reading, writing, and math are technological skills, however, not even close to the technology that became the focus of education when we mobilized for the first world war. If we want to understand our national changes we must understand what war has to do with education, and what the military technology of the second world war and the nuclear bomb with missiles that can deliver such a bomb anywhere in the world, have to do with the National Defense Education Act and the radical change of public education that has radically social, economic and political ramifications.

We have adopted the bureaucratic model of our enemy and our enemies education for technology, and we now have reactionary politics as Germany had when Hitler took control, and are witnessing the decay of our democracy and increasing loss of liberty, as we no longer understand what morals have to do with our liberty and democracy.

I will be glad to validate every point with quotes if there is interest in what I have said.

The Germans make sure their regrettable history is not forgotten by putting up markers where Jews were forced out of the homes, and in the classroom where every child learns of the history. I would like to see the US adopt this humanitarian effort by putting up markers to remember those who lived on the land before Europeans came, and also where those who lived on this land but came from Mexico before the US took control of the land through war. Our schools should teach our history and its effect on others. If the whole world acknowledged their wrongs and how their wrongs affected others, we might have a better human experience on this planet and change our consciousness in an important way.

I am not sure our borders should be open to everyone. Our liberty depends very much on a shared culture, and while others may enter the US temporarily they are required to take a test for citizenship if they want to stay. While anyone educated in our school system should be able to pass the test for citizenship, and that education would make the children, who have been educated, citizens regardless of where their parents came from. What makes a person a desirable citizen is an education for citizenship. Until a person has this education, a person's stay needs to be limited.

However, humanitarian needs must be met by civilizations capable of doing so. The US has a legal process for this, and those who want to enter the country and whose lives are threatened in the country of origin, should be cared for in refugee camps until the process is completed.