What Political Values do you Align With Most?

[Jonas Long]

1 minute ago, Links said:

But the complication is, the outside world is always changing and we have to adapt and change just to conserve what we've got. Do we want to conserve? 

 

Can't really hold on to anything.  Trying to is suffering.

[Links]

32 minutes ago, Jonas Long said:

Yeah, you can do that circle thing with your own "self" ie body, mind, Id, ego, superego, higher self, etc. however you see that or want to do it.  But the benefit of the exercise is actually to detach from intense identification with these things, the way I've seen it.  Which are you really, your thoughts, body, feelings; which really define you,, your family, country, race, football team, favorite philosopher, favorite spiritual teacher, etc.  They're all constructs, none of any of them are you. 

 

Ok, it's all a construct I get that, this is all on the relative level and there's an Absolute which hugs all these relativities in its loving embrace. However I don't go with the notion of detachment either. What am I really?  As David Icke put it "Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion".   But love expresses itself, appears as, these constructs,  we are still limited humans as well as being infinite.  I dunno, perhaps when I'm dead I'll just be the infinite, until then I'm also the finite and proud to stand up for my limited part of the world. 

 

12 minutes ago, Jonas Long said:

Can't really hold on to anything.  Trying to is suffering.

 

Letting go is a more subtle form of the same suffering. Holding on and letting go both require believing in two things.   Well, not just suffering, also pleasure and pain, they go together. 

  

I'm tired now, need to finish for tonight. 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Links

[Jonas Long]

6 minutes ago, Links said:

 

Ok, it's all a construct I get that, this is all on the relative level and there's an Absolute which hugs all these relativities in its loving embrace. However I don't go with the notion of detachment either. What am I really?  As David Icke put it "Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion".   But love expresses itself, appears as, these constructs,  we are still limited humans as well as being infinite.  I dunno, perhaps when I'm dead I'll just be the infinite, until then I'm also the finite and proud to stand up for my limited part of the world. 

 

I'm tired now, need to finish for tonight. 

Nothing is finite.

[Devin]

1 hour ago, Links said:

 

I'm not a businessman so don't have direct experience to offer. But businesses must need a lot of teamwork internally to get good results, even if the employees are also competing against each other for promotion and bonuses etc.  Companies also cooperate with their suppliers for their own inputs to build up good relationships. 

 

Similarly socialists surely employ a mix of cooperation and competition, tho with less need for competition anyway.  I'm retired now, but used to work in the public sector and we were the only organisation in the country doing what we did so there wasn't anyone else to compete with. Some things are naturally socialist and no point privatising. It's nonsensical to have several armies or police forces competing for the same jobs.  I never said I'm a capitalist apart from where I invest some pension money. But then it's pretty stupid to have state ownership of everything too, so private ownership is good as well. 

 

Capitalism and socialism both have their place - for example my family life is very much like a socialist system; we share the family income in a joint bank account and spend it on where it's most needed. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. And that's as a traditional married couple.  But I have a preference for my own family rather than having personal equality with other families, beyond the taxes I have to pay plus a bit of charity donation. My "right wing" mentality is to extend that family circle outwards in stages. Just as I prioritise my nuclear family, I'll also prioritise my extended family over others. I'll prioritise my local community over others, my tribe, my nation, my race , my religion etc. I'm rejecting the idea that there has to be some enforced equality by everybody.  Surely that's a caricature of socialism? 

 

It's circles within circles. I accept that there's a lot of "me" identification in that, a lot of ego: my family, my tribe, my nation. But that's the glue which holds things together isn't it?  I've got a little project to map out these circles of identification, I wonder if anyone else has done anything like it before?  Like a venn diagram of circles with me at the centre , my family, my friends, my extended family, my tribe etc etc. 

Yeah I don't see complete socialism working on a large scale nation like the u.s.. we have private prisons and government agents though, which is ridiculous.

[Devin]

1 hour ago, Links said:

 

Hmm, I guess it depends on the context. If you're living a good life and external circumstances (ie those beyond your control) stay the same then it's not really an experiment to stay the same. But the complication is, the outside world is always changing and we have to adapt and change just to conserve what we've got. Do we want to conserve? 

   

Are Americans fundamentally happy with what they've got?  It doesn't quite look like they are, they keep criticising themselves and try to improve and change themselves. Yet they've been the richest country and most powerful superpower for the last century or so.  I'm just wondering aloud if there's a correlation there, between having that  dissatisfaction and inner conflict, and their material success.  Yet some other powers are rising in the East like China who don't broadcast all their insecurities to the rest of the world (tho must surely have them hidden away).  Their "communist" model for being a super power looks rather different to the US. 

Americans hate our system, until they're rich. Much of the country is way more poor than western European countries

[Jonas Long]

The only way to change American culture is to try to make it stay the same.  Its main feature is that's it's constantly evolving, mixing, changing.