The struggle the USA faces in accepting kindness for all

How should society be organised, if at all?

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-1-
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Re: The struggle the USA faces in accepting kindness for all

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Arising_uk wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2018 12:11 pm
-1- wrote:... The group leader is the one who knows what the product is, and s/he won't reveal what it is to the group; but will elicit opinions from the participants what they figure is good and bad in their opinion regarding the product.
This can't be right can it?
Yes, it can be right.

Consider, please, the following:

Group leaders have a skill. Many can describe a product by its qualities without any hint given as to the structure of the product. Or as to the entire function of the product. Therefore the product itself is not revealed, only qualities of it, and only select qualities if that's how much they want to reveal.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: The struggle the USA faces in accepting kindness for all

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

-1- wrote: Fri Jan 19, 2018 12:22 pm
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville
There is a problem. Americans see socialism only as it had been viewed during the times of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. This is evil to the Americans. Say "socialism" and they will invariably think of poverty, slavery, shut up or you will be sent to the Gulag, people disappearing, political tortures, individualism abolished, we all march to the same beat, May Day parades, carrying larger-than-life pacards of Stalin, Lenin, Marx and Engels, drab clothing that don't fit well, poor nutrition, poverty, socialized medicare, laziness, total loss of individual enterprise, total loss of reward for striving to do well, atheism, Darwinism, etc. etc. etc.

I think Americans have a hard, very hard time of getting rid of this image, and seeing socialism form from a different angle: "We produce a lot, we have a lot to give, so why not give to those who don't deserve it, by work or by purchasing power, but need it; they are humans too." This is the spirit developing in advanced industrial countries, and advanced democracies. They are examples that show that democracy, capitalism and socialism can be blended, without causing harm or destruction or failure to the system.

In Canada, UK, Germany, and all other European countries, save for the Balkans, wealth is immense; they don't mind welferizing their nations when there are no jobs, for they recognize that joblessness is not an individual's fault, but a force of the economic reality creates it. Why punish those who can't get a job by subjecting them to extreme poverty? In America, that's an immediate and well-accepted way of dealing with people. Nobody even questions the process. This is natural to Americans, to detest and despise those with no jobs, and to allow them to drift their lives into disarray, desperation and defeat. In Europe, in Canada, governments and the population do see and accept that socialized medicare does lead to a healthy nation with no worries about their health and footing the bill, instead of what Americans believe, that socialized medicare destroys the medical system and undermines the American way of life, which is a dog-eat-dog world, you survive or perish.

Then they have the audacity to deny the force of Darwinist evolution.

Anywhoooo... enough said. I wanted to point out only one thing: that Americans apply a certain equivocation, by equating socialism of old to socialism of new. And this is a mistake they make.
People of varying perspectives, in order to suit their particular desires, ascribe many different concepts to other more encompassing concepts. We all do it, and almost always for selfish reasons.

Every government was built by those that's projected themselves as godlike, seemingly knowing, caring and fair, but actually all wanting and selfish, a means to control the multitudes and maintain their lofty position. It's part of the deal. "I'll control you, make you safe, provide a standard of living, usually above that which they've known, the selling point, and I'll be paid handsomely for it." As if their course is necessarily correct... I would argue, after careful analysis of human history, that it's usually not.

The words/concepts of the past, should stay where they belong, in the past, as they have no real truth in the now. All things change, it's the law of physics, mankind is no different. We evolve! Being Socialistic, Democratic, Communistic, Capitalistic, all had their days, which is not today! So why do we continually define today with yesterdays ideologies. Because those that created the old ways only did so to secure their larger share of the resources, so frightened of dying they created schemes, clouded by deceptive slogans and ideas purported to consider all, but the truth was otherwise. American, so called, leaders as well as other, so called, leaders, want to remain in control, in power to ensure their version of freedom at the cost of all others that they would have below them, else they couldn't be at the top, couldn't experience more. And that's the problem! They're happy where they're at, they don't want to relinquish their power.

Today we need new concepts/words to describe the best portions of those of old. To extract all the good from the past that was available within them and add that which is in answer to those things that they contained that were bad. You might be asking yourself what is good and bad in this particular case. Well the good is real equality amongst all humans. A new system that values each persons interests equally amongst all others. Equality in all facets of life, all benefits equally for all, all laws equally for all. All education equally free for all, imagine how far we could go, as the people of the earth, if that were true. I'm sure some, would be Einstein's, are as poor as sand, with possibly even less nurturing.

We need to truly become one people, you know, like the three musketeers, "all for one and one for all." The days of the competition of "us and them" has reached the end of it's time, what with nuclear annihilation on the table of possibilities. It's an absurd position, if we all truly value life.

As for Governments, one way to achieve true equality amongst all humans is to change their current structure. I see that the only way to steer the human ship on any true course of continued existence, is to end the days of the politicians, and enter the days of PhD's. Academics are the only people actually capable of steering this human ship in the direction that brings us together united, such that existence is assured. I mean to ask, do you truly care about your children and their children's, children's, children? (etc)

Every job and educational curriculum has prerequisites in place, and government employees should be no different. Lobbying should be outlawed. Any capitalist, that sees everything as dollars and cents should not be allowed to be a leader of any government. For human life to continue the monkeys glittering prize (wealth, money) must be eliminated as any type of goal for any government official. That is not what should dictate any course of legislation. The only proper course is to ensure "everyone" is healthy happy and wise. So cleanly watered, nutritionally fed, securely housed, environmentally clean, and completely educated. This is what the human of the day should aspire to achieve! To hell with "us and them" competition, that which has plagued us for countless centuries, the reason we war, selfish competition for natural resources, instead of intelligent solutions for all to benefit from technological breakthroughs, designed to answer the largest problems of the world of humans. Balance is key, for any long lived existence, I understood this in 7th grade science class on ecosystems, (natural checks and balances)! Mother earth speaks to us and shows us the way, if we only listen to her. If we keep cheating her rhythms due to our insatiable desire to have more, she shall smack us down.

We are nature and nature is us, we are the universe and the universe is us, if we forget our place within earth's symbiotic biosphere, we seemingly unwittingly, turn our backs on ourselves, our very existence. How mesmerized by the allure of the monkey's glittering prize are we, to ignore the natural rhythms of the earth that has sustained us for millions of years?

I heard somebody use a metaphor while 'sacrificing' my life for 'ALL Americans and all our allies,' they said that, "it's always harder to tighten ones belt than it is to loosen it." meaning that it's a cycle, a dichotomy, that we must suck it up, putting our noses to the grindstone so that we can know the fruits of our labour! They are mutually inclusive!

OK I'm done. Many of you have heard parts of this before. It just means that I'm resolute in my understanding of the current human condition, and I see that we are indeed capable of doing much more, that our current doings are sorely lacking! I have a hard time being proud of what we currently are. Why do we seem so lost, to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Does nobody seriously look at our history to see where we continually fail. Do we all just consider it a course that we have to pass to graduate, never to understand it's lessons?

We must radically change the way we do business, as clearly it's not working. Read the news! When the quest for the monkeys glittering prize is capable of toppling all sense of modern civilization, we had better rethink our civilizations structure.

Peace to you all!

Said the American, SpheresOfBalance, yet quite a bit more than merely an American. Does the place where one was born and lived most of their life, necessarily define them?
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