My problem is that if the word-forms conveyed meaning, we’d know what they meant by reading them. It is precisely because they do not convey meaning that we do not understand them, not unless some Rosetta Stone or human being is able to supply them with meaning. The drift of meaning over time suggests much the same.

Good thinking.

Though in my mind your argument is unequivocal, you touch on some other principles of individuation which may suffice better than DNA because DNA also shows that we are mostly alike. And then we get events like blood transfusions or transplants, or where DNA can become mixed, which confuses the matter.

You mentioned time, for instance. Times implies space or location. Location suffices to distinguish one system from another, and as such, to distinguish the identity of one system from another. I would say that the DNA of that specific system of that specific time and space, is but further evidence of its individuation.

You can watch as the maggots bury themselves in the brains.

Hannity:

We almost have to go to a break. I want to go back to this one issue, though, because the media has been focused on this and attacking you. Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.

Trump (18:51):

Except for day one.

Hannity (18:53):

Except for?

Trump (18:54):

He’s going crazy. Except for day one.

Hannity (18:55):

Meaning?

Trump (18:56):

I want to close the border and I want to drill.

Hannity (18:59):

That’s not retribution.

Trump (19:05):

I’m going to be… He keeps… We love this guy. He says you’re not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no. Other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator. Okay?

Hannity (19:18):

That sounds to me like you’re going back to the policies when you were president.

Trump (19:21):

That’s exactly….

People have been spitting that line a lot lately in the opinion section and among the pundits of legacy media. He's going to be a dictator. He's going to ruin democracy. It's like 2016 all over again. Then, without irony, these democracy defenders (it's always "our democracy") start telling the American people that voting for anything but the uniparty cannot be tolerated. Observe Robert Kagan, a neo-con editor at the Washington Post. He often writes of the coming Trump dictatorship. But his wife is Victoria Nuland, the architect of the Ukrainian scheme, who's work has arguably brought war to Europe's doorstep. Though she worked for Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, Trump asked her to leave. So it's no wonder Kagan's propaganda reads so personal.

Like his joke about the Russians finding Hillary's missing emails, which she likely destroyed, they're going to use Trump's dictator joke as another piece of propaganda. It would be laughable propaganda from any other view, but from within the grips of this mass hysteria it's par for the course. It's just a shame to see it has worked so easily.

James Comey’s appointee Charles McGonigal, a top player in the Russia hoax, was just convicted to 4 years for colluding with Russian oligarchs. The whole time they were trying to frame their political opponents as Russian agents, they were harboring them in their own house and on the tax-payer’s dime.

Former FBI spy hunter gets prison time for giving information to Russian oligarch

https://theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/15/fbi-russia-charles-mcgonigal-convicted-spy-hunter

So go and vote in the next elections, little NOS4A2, and do your duty as a citizen!

Never again!

Right, but voluntary organization is not antithetical to anarchism. The point is that there is no hierarchical sovereign, authority, or government governing these fictitious persons.

It’s a simple model, to me. Individuals afford each other sovereignty, natural rights such as dominion over their own property, and come together voluntarily to cooperate on matters that affect them all. A sovereign over and above these individuals never factors in. Far from the war of all against all, there seems to be relative unity, give or take.

Yes, it’s warranted in my opinion, especially given Biden’s lies about his son’s dealings, many of which occurred while Biden was present and in power. I guess he should not have lied.

Given that the stage has been set by previous impeachments, this is par for the course, anyways. At least the house members you cited are acting in good faith, unlike the last ones.

The members of the United Nations in particular. Voluntary cooperation without any hierarchical government is a hallmark of anarchism.

That’s why an inquiry is in order, to find the answers. It should be no problem if they have nothing to hide. Hopefully with some authority the stonewalling will end.

It’s not that they made money, but that it is unclear what they’re selling. I can name any number of goods and services sold by the Trump organization. Can you name one by Biden Inc.?

Is there some sort of hierarchical government governing these states that I am not aware of?

There is quite a bit, actually.

Key Evidence:

- An interactive timeline of the Biden’s pay for play schemes
- Oversight Committee report revealing the Bidens’ dealings with foreign countries.
- Biden Bank Records Memorandum showing the family created over 20 shell companies
- Key Findings from the IRS Whistleblowers
- Whistleblowers’ transcripts press release and links
- Follow-up letters seeking more transcribed interviews in the wake of the IRS whistleblowers’ explosive testimony
- FBI Form 1023 alleging then-Vice President Joe Biden engaged in a bribery and extortion scheme and ultimately received $5 million from a Burisma executive.
- Comer Releases Third Bank Memo Detailing Payments to the Bidens from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine
- Sixteen Times Joe Biden Lied About His Family’s Business Schemes
- Twenty-Two Examples of Joe Biden’s Involvement in His Family’s Influence Peddling Schemes
-Comer Reveals $200,000 Payment to Joe Biden the Same Day James Biden Received $200,000 from Americore
- Comer Reveals How Joe Biden Received Laundered China Money

https://oversight.house.gov/landing/biden-family-investigation/

No comment on these, I suppose.

It’s not an impeachment. They don’t have the receipts because they are being stonewalled. Hence the inquiry. Wouldn’t want to mention that.

Where are the quotes from everyone else involved, for instance those outlining the evidence so far? I imagine those are all minimized while this one is amplified.

He said "Donald Trump 2024", therefor he's admitting it's a political sham.

He also said this:

Therefor he's admitting real concern for the president's behavior.

The House has formalized the impeachment inquiry into Biden’s corruption. The First Crackhead indicted on 9 federal tax crimes. No little posts, news links, or deep discussions on the matter. I see that our interest in high crimes and misdemeanors has really fallen off.

It is if Rawls' (or some other) theory is correct. See distributive justice for a more in-depth account.

Naturally, I’m in the retributive justice camp myself.

I'd like to see you set out a consistent and closed system of private ownership based on moral rules only.

That sounds like a lot of work. Rather, the conviction that I ought not to take another's things is enough to refrain me from doing so. The law, on the other hand, is inconsistent. It forbids stealing for some but allows it for itself.

If Rawls' theory of justice is correct in concluding that "economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged" then this maximin principle may entail that taxation is just.

Although I suspect you agree more with Nozick.

Yes, the acquisitions and transfers need to be just in order for the distribution to be just. Taxation is not a just acquisition or transfer.

So dictates the law. Reason dictates otherwise.

Neither side offers freedom. It’s a tug of war between two competing elements of Republicanism, who act as praetorian guards to the system of control they compete over. There are other directions and lines upon which one can travel politically. That’s all I was saying.

I’m not sure why people find affiliation with others based on vague notions of ideology and where they put themselves on a linear spectrum. There is exactly one ideology per human being, none alike, and the political spectrum ought to resemble a galaxy rather than a straight line. It would be silly to clutch to such an image of politics.

When the Left abandoned its defense of freedom it turned Right, conservative, and reactionary. Now you can’t slide a piece of paper between the two sides. It’s all about seeking and maintaining the power and prestige of their political institutions rather than lessening their grip on other human beings.

Abandon both wings, make of the absurd political spectrum a triangle, put right and left at the bottom, and add your own at the pinnacle. Now you have a direction.

So long as they are just in their transfers there is no reason to prevent someone from becoming wealthy. To do so would be to engage in the unjust transfer of wealth, for instance through theft, exploitation, and forced labor like taxation.

Looks like signs of delusion to me.

It should be easy for you to explain why I’m on it. You told me you saw a pattern.

Sure, I’d love to see your argument.

I have wasted enough time responding to, by your own admission, your thoughtless words. The cure cannot lie in more words. The only cure would be for you to begin to THINK. Clearly and honestly, as a matter of integrity. Drop the rhetorical defense of Trump and with it the defense of all the nonsense this leads you to say.

But perhaps I give you too much credit by implying that you are capable of doing this.

This whole time you haven’t once revealed how words are more than their form. And your rhetoric is powerless. You try to tell me what to do but it has the exact opposite effect. A waste indeed.



I’m afraid we’ve never met so your intuitions amount to nothing.

Well, you can say that for you it does not strike a chord, but you don't speak for everyone.

Neither do you but you keep referring to "us".

You didn't ask.

In the context of this thread, the "We the People" discussed in the preamble to the US constitution seems a relevant circle of who one might consider "us". Though I had no particular circle in mind. Some might associate "us" with family, and others with humanity, and draw the circle narrower or wider at different times, depending on circumstances.

Whatever monkeysphere you can relate to will do for the purposes of this discussion.

In that case the "us" will be you and me. Still, no chord being struck here.

You seriously need to improve your critical thinking skills. You mistake jumping to a conclusion on your part for something having been proven. I recommend greater recognition of seeking falsification as good epistemic practice.

Once again, you didn't ask.

Do you still need me to explain references to the real world further?

You haven't referred to the real world. You brought up "us", clearly referring to yourself and your own imagination. Let me know when the real world enters the picture.



Your magical thinking regarding words shows your disregard for them. You have to imagine they have a special powers in order for them to matter. “If words have no power,” you say, “then they have no power and do not matter”. It’s your own base and superstitious non-sequitur.

It makes no sense to treat words as if they are independent of thought and an equivocation to pretend that what is at issue with words is the form they take.

You seem to believe words are more than their form, but are still unable to show me that they are. Where is this other stuff? Point to it, take a picture of it, describe it—anything.

You can strike everything after "If" because it is just sophist propaganda spewing out of your head, whether intentionally so or not. A more interesting topic to me is whether or not you can relate to "us" striking a chord. Or to what degree you can do so?

The word does not strike a chord, nor can any other abstraction you can put forward. You won’t tell me which “us” you’re referring to, proving to me it lacks any reference to the real world and flesh-and-blood human beings.

First off, as you demonstrate over and over in this thread alone, you are enormously susceptible to propaganda yourself. So now that we've established that we are humans here discussing things in this thread... Do you experience thoughts of "us" as striking a primal chord within you?

Which humans? You and me? Is this the “us” you’re speaking of? No chord is being struck over here.

Your attempt to separate words from their meaning and consequence is the result of your irresponsible defense of Trump's irresponsible claims. Your inept defense of his right to free speech is based on your treating words as if they do not matter. Any rational discussion of free speech and censorship needs to address this.

I never said words do not matter. I think Trump’s words do matter, and that is why I am defending his right to say them, and from any attempt to suppress them. I was arguing words have no power, which means they do not do the things you claim they do.

I don't know if this is a reflection of your failure to understand or an attempt to dissemble. I am not confirming what you have been arguing, I am pointing out your fundamental misunderstanding. The arbitrariness of the form and sound of words does not mean that the meaning of words is arbitrary. It does not mean that words do not have power or do not matter.

I am pointing out your fundamental straw man. I never said meaning is arbitrary. I didn’t say that since the form and sound is arbitrary, the meaning must be. This is where your goalposts started to widen, as I’ve already shown.

First, because it is our democracy that Trump endangers.

Second, there are various forms of democracy. You have no trouble with:

No it isn’t. It’s your version of it he threatens, the one where every 4 years you spend an hour or two waiting in line to exercise your supposed rule, but end up delegating it to someone else. It’s the one where you are not allowed to contest the results of an election, where censorship is warranted, and where sorcery is regnant.

I do reject the notion of the common good, which is another selfish desire portrayed as something everyone wants and needs, where the ends always justify the means, including violating people’s rights so you can have it. No shortage of dictators used the rhetoric of the common good to justify totalitarianism.

I forgot to mention Plato's Cratylus. The question of linguistic arbitrariness is not something new and not something I was not aware of.

I pegged you as more of a Gorgias kind of guy.

It also merits consideration that "us" strikes primal chords, in homo sapiens who aren't psychopathic to some degree. Any thoughts on that?

If by “strikes primal chords” you mean you get a little tingly sensation whenever you hear a first-person plural or first-person possessives, without first wondering what this “us” refers to, I’d say you’re susceptible all types of propaganda.

This merits its own consideration:

Why do you keep saying “our democracy”? Why not just say “democracy”? We know the answer: this trite phrase is political language, not used to discuss the concept, but used to appeal emotionally to those who read it. This is what “thinking in words” gets you, an over-estimation of the power of words and the attempts at propaganda as a result.

This whole exchange has been about your attempt to separate words and meaning. I called you out on this from the beginning of this exchange. From my first two posts on this:

Your round-about way of defending censorship pushed you into maintaining a position you have been unable to defend.

More on this last point below.

You then go on to defend yourself by misunderstanding and misusing the concept of linguistic arbitrariness. But we should expect no less from someone who claims to think without words.

You clearly didn’t know what the concept was until I mentioned it. I was using the concept earlier in the exchange and it fell on deaf ears until I gave you something to google. See this quote:

“Words are independent of thought. It’s the reason we can’t understand a language simply by reading it or hearing someone speak it. Scratches on paper, text on screen, and articulated guttural sounds are arbitrary, merely conventional. It is not possible to deduce the underlying meaning from its word form.”

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/859380

Later, after giving you the word “arbitrariness” to google, you confirm what I was arguing all along.

“You clearly do not understand what linguistic arbitrariness means. 'Water' and 'agua' have a different form and sound but mean the same thing. Theform and sound of words may be arbitrary but the meaning is not.”

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/859550

In 2017 Democrat in Congress begged Biden not to certify the election based on conspiracy theories. It’s called politics, and I don’t recall anyone raising any stink about it then.

https://cnn.com/cnn/2017/01/06/politics/electoral-college-vote-count-objections/index.html

In any case, so illegal was the Pence move that they had to change the law after Trump tried it.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/congress-approves-new-election-certification-rules-in-response-to-jan-6



The Trump-hater has proven himself incapable of fairness and balance. Justice evades him. It’s all about power and conformity, and moving to control how others think. Unfortunately his power wanes. His double-speak doesn’t have the effect he thinks it does.

If they are devoid of meaning and significance I'm not going to do for you what you have failed to do for yourself. If your words are devoid of meaning and significance there is no reason to take anything you say seriously.

If you can read you should be fine. If you want me to clarify, don’t be afraid to ask.

You clearly do not understand what linguistic arbitrariness means. 'Water' and 'agua' have a different form and sound but mean the same thing. Theform and sound of words may be arbitrary but the meaning is not. If you look up the meaning of a word in the dictionary it does not say that the meaning is arbitrary, that it means whatever you want it to mean.

One minute we’re talking about words, next we’re talking about meaning. The goal posts continue to expand. I say the word is arbitrary, you tell me the meaning isn’t, tell me to look at the dictionary, and I guess I’m supposed to feel refuted thereby. So where are these words you think in?

You are deeply confused. When I think of those words I am thinking in terms of those words. I am thinking about what democracy and freedom mean and how a demagogue like Trump and his followers threaten our democracy. I am thinking about how there has been a disturbing shift to autocracy in many countries and how if Trump is elected or attempts to overturn the election again the US will become an autocracy as well. And I am thinking of how Trumpsters will attempt to render the term meaningless by accusing their opponents of being autocratic.

When you think of those words you are thinking in terms of those words…you can’t get any more circular than that.

Only an autocrat would suggest no one is allowed to contest an election. Never will you mention the forces at work trying to keep people off the ballot, or that state and federal governments are trying to railroad their greatest political opponents, or the routine censorship of dissenting voices. Maybe it’s you rendering the term meaningless. “Our democracy” has become pure doublespeak in the mouths of those who continually utter it, anyways, so no glittering generality you pretend is at threat will work here.

This reminds me, a while back I asked you if you support democracy. You never answered. Is it that you think it is a meaningless sound or are you just unwilling to admit that your loyalty to Trump trumps democratic rule?

I support the rule of the people. I don’t support your version of democracy, which is no doubt conflated with electioneering, vote-grubbing, and representative government. How many times have you ruled? Your version of rule of the people is centered on how many time the earth rotates around the sun, for purely astrological reasons. You exercise your rule one day every few years for no other reason than it’s time to vote. This is oligarchy and serfdom and I do not support it.

Do you think death threats should be legal?

I think everything should be legal.

Are your words just scratches and sounds without meaning or significance? Can you replace them indiscriminately with any other words? Or, just strings of sounds and scratches? Does your defense of Trump amount to more than grunts? Is there more to what you say than there is to a dog barking?

They are. And you have to supply them with meaning and significance. They have neither. In linguistics it is called “arbitrariness”.

But I did. I gave you three: freedom, democracy, and autocracy. But you refuse to explain how you think about them and other words without words.

You gave me three words in text. Point to me any of the words that you’re thinking in. A picture would suffice. Any thing to which the word “word” signifies.

Then what is it you "think in" when thinking about them without them?

I don’t think in anything. I just think.

Me too. Very subtle movements, perhaps tiny, inaudible but articulated expressions.