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Tag(s): Corporations Voting Machine; Democracy; Democracy History; Election Reform; Election Theft; Election Throw The Bastards Out; Election-Voting Issues; Electronic Voting; Freedom; Secrecy - Transparency
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July 4, 2007 at 10:27:51

Defending the Freedoms of July 4, 1776: America's Hope for the World

by Paul Lehto Page 2 of 3 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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And indeed, considering the highest of political moralities and 620,000 civil war dead, President George H.W. Bush (Sr.) wrote: "I sometimes wonder if we've forgotten who we are. But we're the people who sundered a nation rather than allow a sin called slavery, and we're the people who rose from the ghettos and the deserts." Bush Sr. also wrote: " America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation, and gentler the face of the world." Whether or not one supported President George H.W. Bush, his evocation of American ideals is consistent with the noble intent of 1776, and the guidance those ideals intended throughout all of history. If any President of the United States wants to accomplish something in our country, for better or for worse, he will invoke this power of American idealism, as George W. Bush did once again in his Second Inaugural Address:

"Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul." These ideals are so powerful, they are even used with success in convincing the American public to go to war. Countless millions have died in the name of freedom and democracy or self-government by We the People. President Woodrow Wilson said "Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. … America is the only idealist nation in the world." Americans are often called by their leaders to aggressively achieve American ideals: Indeed, "the American," as President John F. Kennedy said, "builds best when called upon to build greatly." Americans started by building a great Declaration of Independence and Constitution that were intended, as Founder Henry Clay put it, "for endless perpetual posterity." Ideals can indeed work forever because they guide us or remind us even when not yet fully achieved.

But the fundamental freedom of American self-government, the very key of liberty, is being challenged like never before. The sole method of control of the government that Americans have is elections. And in the last several years, the counting of America’s votes has been rendered corruptly secret, invisible and outside the power of any citizen to observe, via the processes and contracts of computerized voting. Secrecy is always the total lack of accountability, because everyone needs information to make someone accountable.

Moreover, because this corrupt secret vote counting is being handled by corporations in invisible trade secrecy of computer software, a government insider that wants to throw an election can manipulate the election computers just as easily as we all manipulate our own personal computers. There is no such thing as security against our own computers that we possess or control. Essentially all of the talk about “security” of computerized voting machines has been restricted to taking them off the internet, which only protects the government against “threats” from the public, but does not do anything to protect We the People from insiders in our government who want to stay in power, sell elections, or have a political issue they strongly wish to favor.

As a result, even though the government’s #1 job and the reason it was formed was to “secure” our rights, our right to “alter or abolish” our government under the Declaration of Independence is totally unsecured, and in fact no longer exists wherever there is a criminal insider in elections. This is the main time if not the only time when we really need our inalienable right to “kick the bums out.”

Thus, the American people, not able to freely kick out the worst criminal cheaters, are not a free people. This is not a “threat” of loss of freedom, it is a present day reality wherever computerized voting and a criminal insider are present.

Given the many very important issues on the ballot, combined with the control of the world’s richest country, many billions in federal contracts, and control of the sole military superpower in the world at stake, it is both naïve and even unpatriotic to believe that nobody would desire to preserve or achieve power over America illegitimately. Our right to vote, and therefore to be master instead of slave, is rendered entirely meaningless if we can not secure an open and public count, controlled by We the People. The government sure can’t audit itself, investigate itself or elect itself, and the government gets 100% of its money and power from one source: elections.

The powerful role of We the People in self-government is, along with the inalienable right to alter or abolish the government, a self-evident fact. Self-evident means that we don’t need to prove these rights or facts, they prove themselves and are completely obvious. There is only one alternative to democracy where we are all tied for #1 most important citizen in the land on account of our equal votes, and that is inequality whereby one person or class rules over another with unequal rights. That is the essence of Tyranny and the opposite of freedom. That is categorically not what the Founders set out to accomplish for all of humanity and for all time.

Everybody wants to be #1 and many want to “rule the world” and so perhaps it is to be expected that corporations have captured our vote counts and made them their private property, literally kicking off We the People as trespassers, even though this is the very heart and soul and democracy. But as soon as we recall our past, recall the importance of freedom as a people, recall that all power emanates from rights, and that rights are supposed to inhere only in people and not kings, governments and soul-less corporations, we will re-invigorate the engines of human rights and freedom that have so excited the American people and the people of the world that they’ve acted as both prime political forces as well as facilitating economic progress by unleashing the enterprise of free individuals.

Americans, once they know what is at stake, will never tolerate a takeover of their country by forces hostile to the common good of the American people and dedicated legally and contractually solely to private profit. If a foreign country could not demand the right to count votes in secret, neither can corporations in America demand the same. Indeed, the two are the same and the effort by a foreign country to take over our elections would be unanimously resisted by all Americans, using the military if necessary. No corporation is our superior, there is no basis for them to have these special privileges of secret counting.

John Quincy Adams spoke on July 4, 1821: “America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.”

These rights are the tools of democracy. Each generation must use them or lose them. So far every generation of Americans has acted to make the promises of the declaration of independence more real. This one will too, as long as people take the time to remember what the American experiment is all about, remember to defend democracy, remember that compromises of our rights are the same as violations of our rights, and remember that the government has no excuse but to be our servant and guarantee us our rights, especially our #1 inalienable right to “alter or abolish” our own government, or kick the bums out.

If you believe as I believe, then you can see how the power of the Declaration of Independence has melted away the forces of history, bigotry, oppression, and been our guide star for centuries. We are not any longer a free people because of computerized secret vote counting, but this is so obviously improper and such a clear invitation to the grossest corruptions that it simply can not stand the light of day, or the sunshine of publicity.

Already, an August 2006 Zogby poll shows that 92% of the American public support a system of observable vote counting by citizens. This is a totally nonpartisan issue, and high support exists for observable vote counting across every political party and demographic. This is yet another reason why there is simply no excuse for Congress to deny the will of the people in favor of the corporate will to own the heart of our democracy as their own private property. There is also no excuse for asking us to trust these private corporations or officials, our system is not based on trust it is based on checks and balances.

Thus, in fighting to restore our freedom we are incredibly lucky in our generation, that the battle will only involve informing all of our fellow Americans, and watching these vote counting corporations and their election official defenders of secrecy melt before the power of the Declaration of Independence. Today, we have the unique privilege of knowing for sure that we are fighting for freedom and democracy, even as some who have served our country and sacrificed their lives might understandably have had a doubt whether it was truly necessary to sacrifice their lives. But as the Marines say “Ours is not to wonder why, ours is just to do or die.”

If you’d like to see the American Declaration of Independence be restored to its rightful course as the world’s beacon of rights freedom, for all of humanity and for all time, if you believe that America is real and that ideas matter, your help is very needed to spread the word to our fellow citizens, the true and rightful rulers of this country. To do this, please post, email or copy and paste this article in as many places as you can find, and talk about it with whoever you can. Do this today, tomorrow, and the next day, and keep going because the sacred inalienable rights of the Declaration are top news EVERY DAY, regardless of what anyone says.

In distributing this word, we need to let all American citizens know of the unfaithfulness of our government to the principles they are sworn to uphold, and that they are about to vote in the House of Representatives on HR 811 and in the Senate on S1487 which will institutionalize secret vote counting for Senators and Representatives IN THEIR OWN ELECTIONS. This too, this self-serving behavior, will not stand, and can not stand. It would be comical were freedom not so serious.

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13 comments

I am a retired forensic psychologist living in Los Angeles with enough time on my hands to have spent the past few years studying the deeds whose perpetrators pejoratively deride the correct analysis of which as "conspiracy theories," i.e., USG intelligence community domestic covert operations -- fascist politics by unconventional means. A professor of analytic philosophy in a former career, I no longer embrace the Lotus Land argument that if you can work on y...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Michael GreenI am a retired forensic psychologist living in Los Angeles with enough time on my hands to have spent the past few years studying the deeds whose perpetrators pejoratively deride the correct analysis of which as "conspiracy theories," i.e., USG intelligence community domestic covert operations -- fascist politics by unconventional means. A professor of analytic philosophy in a former career, I no longer embrace the Lotus Land argument that if you can work on y...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Deluded Inspiration

Lehto writes, "The Declaration of Independence especially was intended not just for Americans, it was declared for the benefit of all of humanity."

COMMENT: When Ho Chi Minh incorporated the Declaration of Independence into the Vietnamese constitution for decades, he remained under the imperial fist of France, then of the United States. Eisenhowever, in violation of agreement, forbade free elections in Vietnam because it was widely known that 80% of the people wanted a socialist form of government and would support Ho Chi Minh. Freedom from the imperial rule of these "freedom loving" American rulers cost the lives of some 2-3,000,000 Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians.

The original draft of the Declaration of Independence included amongst its inalienable rights "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property." The (rich white) Founding Fathers realized that the "pursuit of property," their motivation, would not be much of a selling point with the common folk, so changed the propaganda to "Liberty." Although compulsory military service was part of the revolution, rich men were by law permitted by buy-out that obligation with gold, and after the revolution the right to vote was denied to women and white males without property. Blacks were property and had no vote.

Lehto writes, "As President Ronald Reagan put it 'Ours was a philosophical revolution that changed the very concept of government.' " Reagan was put into office by right-wing Christian fascists, Dominionist-Reconstructionists and far-right Catholics who proudly sponsored and funded death squads throughout Central America to suppress wages,eliminate workers' rights, and eliminate political resistance to the comprador class that "did business" with the United States ruling elite. The tip of this iceberg was the "Iran-Contra" scandal, drug-peddling by this far-right elite with connections to CIA and military intellgience, in order to fund their covert operations and line their own pockets.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose father and uncle were murdered by these folk because of his liberal politics, notes the response of Dominionist-Reconstructionist Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who distributed public lands as well as water and mineral rights to his close friends at what the General Account Office termed "fire sale prices." When asked by a gelded Congress to justify his actions that savaged future generations, "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns." (RFK, Jr., Crimes Against Nature, pp. 25-26). Kennedy is too polite to repeat what really got Watts in trouble, his witticism that "all a nigger wants to be happy is loose shoes, tight pussy, and a warm place to shit."

Reagan's Revolution, with his speechwriters' carefully crafted double-entendre of a 'philosophical revolution that changed the very concept of government,' was the deliberate destruction of every New Deal benefit to the common good and the systematic transfer of wealth from the middle-class of this country to the ruling class, as detailed by several recent political economists, including Jack Rasmus, The War at Home, The Corporate Offensive From Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush.

American ideals have never meant much to the rulers of this nation except insofar as they served their own interests and managed to mobilize patriotic support for revolutions and wars waged primarily for their benefit, though in the process -- largely through a process of mind-numbing pacification and wealth distribution pursued consistently by the Council on Foreign Relations and its predecessor, the National Civic Federation -- have until now benefited many who live in the United States at the cruel expense of the rest of the world. The Republicans who have warm fuzzy feelings for Reagan and wish that Bush43 lived up to his and their ideals are as blind to the facts, and the actual ideology of their rulers, as is this article.

Michael Green

by Michael Green (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 8 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 12:17:33 PM

Paul Lehto practiced law in Washington State for 12 years in business law and consumer fraud, including most recently several years in election law, and is now a clean elections advocate. His forthcoming book is tentatively titled DEFENDING DEMOCRACY. In the past, I co-founded but am no longer an active participant in the San-Diego focused election rights organization Psephos, but I nonetheless recommend their work and reference their site here.
Paul LehtoPaul Lehto practiced law in Washington State for 12 years in business law and consumer fraud, including most recently several years in election law, and is now a clean elections advocate. His forthcoming book is tentatively titled DEFENDING DEMOCRACY. In the past, I co-founded but am no longer an active participant in the San-Diego focused election rights organization Psephos, but I nonetheless recommend their work and reference their site here.

Your charge is that the ideals are hypocritically followed

or simply broken. But that's irrelevant to the ideals themselves. They speak for themselves, and I've already addressed the idea that if ideals are intended to be for "all time" they must necessarily set forth standards against which we will be arguably hypocritical for a long, long time.

And if the Devil cites scripture for his own purposes, so too will politicians cite ideals for their purposes. But that doesn't corrupt the ideals, it just corrupts the politicians.

If you understand that there's hypocrisy then you know the ideal is different than the reality. So it's easy to separate the two, no??

If we are moving in the direction of our ideals, we are not hypocrites we are heroes - or similar, making progress. It is only when we are moving directly in the opposite direction of the ideal that the charge of hypocrisy is applicable.

by Paul Lehto (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 3:35:40 PM

John Ervin is a freelance writer who has written extensively about voting fraud and corporate crimes and he has been the radio guest of Jim Hogue at www.wgdr.org, where he also made his solo debut, a year ago Bastille Day, singing all 7 verses of La Marseillaise. As a member of the American Federation of Musicians (local 4) he has performed as a concert pianist for the French; and he has also recorded for EMI and in broadcasts for the BBC and with the Cleveland Orchestra as a member of its choru...

to see more of bio, click on member name
muservinJohn Ervin is a freelance writer who has written extensively about voting fraud and corporate crimes and he has been the radio guest of Jim Hogue at www.wgdr.org, where he also made his solo debut, a year ago Bastille Day, singing all 7 verses of La Marseillaise. As a member of the American Federation of Musicians (local 4) he has performed as a concert pianist for the French; and he has also recorded for EMI and in broadcasts for the BBC and with the Cleveland Orchestra as a member of its choru...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Inspiration not Deluded, just its hijackers

In response to Mr. Green, and having read and/or written to Barrister Lehto, a lot, I'd say that I agree with almost all of what Mr. Green writes here, but he missed the point of Lehto's citations of Reagan and Bush. Lehto's was an underlying irony that such hypocrites could refer to our democratic and inherently populist ideals while at the same time doing everything they could to reverse and revoke them. Like he says, and Martin Luther before him, and many others since, "The Devil knows and can quote Scripture" if it will serve his ends.

What was pertinent here was not so much that they knew and could quote the Scriptures of our "inalienable" God-given rights ( and those are surely a form of indelible scripture, and "written upon your hearts," so unlike our current "ballots" ) but that they will be judged by that sacred rule, howsowever deceitfully they measured our common life by it.

by muservin (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 50 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 6:31:41 PM

Michael Green full of it on Declaration of Indep & Property

Here's a copy of the original draft of the Declaration with emendations by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. http://shorl.com/drygrugenehesta

You will see that the "pursuit of happiness" is in the original draft, not the "pursuit of property" as Green frivolously alleges in his comment above. There was a prior phrase "life, liberty and property" and Jefferson and others changed that from "property" to "pursuit of happiness," but not for the bad motives Green alleges, while empty of justification for the same based on the record of Jefferson as a whole. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know of any formulation "pursuit of PROPERTY" which really does sound bad. That is actually a formulation by British economist Adam Smith. The fact that "pursuit of property" is rejected in the Declaration in both the first and final drafts is good for those who like the idea that property or the pursuit of property is NOT listed as an inalienable right.

So, it's a scurrilous accusation and false to suggest Jefferson had "pursuit of property" in at any time, and even if he had, the admitted fact that it did not make the final copy of the declaration would be decisive evidence that it was rejected. That would be bad news for property advocates, so the property advocates would go around trying to convince people that there was a secret motive of some sort (irrelevant, even if it existed) that somehow makes the express words mean something other than what it does.

For a discussion of the pursuit of happiness vs the pursuit of property, see http://shorl.com/brusitofifosu

by Paul Lehto (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 11:06:22 PM

Dave Berman is the author of We Do Not Consent, both the book and blog. http://WeDoNotConsent.blogspot.com.
Dave BermanDave Berman is the author of We Do Not Consent, both the book and blog. http://WeDoNotConsent.blogspot.com.

It is important to reflect on our ideals

Thank you for this thought provoking essay, Paul. Despite Michael Green's well-founded cynicism about the origin of our ideals, or at least the facade they were given to make propaganda palatable, we are nonetheless in dire straits today. It is beyond a Constitutional crisis and indeed has ended any realistic illusion of our status as Free People. The frequent recurrence to principles is solid advice, even if we have to project our own idealism on top of questionable motives that produced our founding documents. As I wrote in a piece published on this site earlier this week, it is an important exercise for each of us to perform our own Reflections On Independence, as Paul Lehto has done here.

by Dave Berman (46 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 47 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 12:36:51 PM

Ideals are what they are in text, question is will we use

Ideals are what they are in text, question is will we use them. The "motivations" of unspecified Founders are really quite irrelevant when the documents have texts to them. Unless there is a showing that the wording is ambiguous, there's no basis in law to go beyond the text.

But I've gone beyond the text quite a lot. I carry numerous books around with me on Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others. Michael Green doesn't know what he's talking about. Look carefully, just general allegations and no specific evidence.

Note that the fact that something was INTENDED as a gift to the world doesn't mean that everyone will understand it correctly. Like Michael Green. So there goes the Ho Chi Minh paragraph. All the stuff about rich whites is misleading at best. As explained in detail in Thom Hartmann's book What Would Jefferson Do none of the signers of the Declaration made money, none of their families today have money, many of them died, Jefferson himself was basically bankrupt at this death, Tom Paine had less than 20 people attend his funeral and he was refused a grave because of his later opinions on religious liberty.

Because our country's founding is a rich source of inspiration for all americans and for all democracy, so it must be stopped by those who are threatened by that. Whatever it was back then, it was amazing then and it's gotten better over history, generally speaking.

If others have abandoned the flag, it doesn't follow that we should abandon the flag as well. Indeed, if any were to abandon the flag of 1776, they would abandon the fount of american rights, and all political power emanates from rights. To ignore a revolutionary spirit consciously designed to liberate the entire world and for all time is to commit demo-cide. Of course, with such long term goals, the ideals set forth could not be all achieved right away, yet the Declaration of Independence has still been used as the model political document to free slaves, get women the right to vote, and for Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech. Those who get stuck on the faults of Founders totally miss how hard they worked to establish ideals that would pay dividends in freedom and democracy forever.

by Paul Lehto (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 3:24:18 PM

Richard Mynick is a US citizen who, despite the best efforts of the corporate media, noticed something disturbing about how the 2000 election was decided, & felt it augured poorly for democracy.
Richard MynickRichard Mynick is a US citizen who, despite the best efforts of the corporate media, noticed something disturbing about how the 2000 election was decided, & felt it augured poorly for democracy.

Even with fair elections, the US would still be a corrupt

monster, leading the world into a new Dark Ages of violence & "might makes right." The matter of crooked elections is just a symptom of a far deeper disease.

US elections were reasonably fair until 2000. John Kennedy may very well have "won" an election he didn't really win in 1960, but other than that, presidential elections in the 20th century were all probably awarded to the actual winner.

Yet the US, following WWII, became a corrupt monster, ruled by the malignant cancer called the "miltary industrial complex." Vietnam was the worst instance of mass murder of innocent civilians since WWII. The US overthrew scores of governments in about 60 years, either directly or indirectly. Millions were killed as these events unfolded in Indonesia, SE Asia, Iran, all through Latin America, the Congo, & in the Caribbean. Many of the targeted governments had committed no worse crime than attempting to chart an independent economic course for themselves, using their own resources -- and NONE of them had in any way threatened the American people. And all of this happened with only a small fraction of the US public even being aware of it. It had nothing whatever to do with stolen elections here in the US.

Even with Vietnam, the worst crime of the US government until now, we had duly elected presidents of both parties carrying out policies of civilian mass murder, carpet bombings of awesome tonnage, use of chemical weapons, poisoning the land & water for generations to come. Yet the US mainstream media never talked (or talks) about these atrocities as "unprovoked aggression." It is never suggested that Presidents Johnson & Nixon were war criminals who should have been put before a tribunal in the Hague.

American society is a hell of a lot sicker than just the matter of crooked elections. This is a country in which the people don't understand what their government really does in the world. In part, this is because both the media & educational systems are hopelessly corrupt, and have always been corrupt. And it's partly because the culture itself encourages mindless selfish brutishness & stupidity.

Let's not confuse symptoms & causes. The crooked elections are just a symptom. The cause is an economic & political framework which allows a tiny percentage of the population to control policy direction for the whole country.

by Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1229 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 7:49:02 PM

Let's presume that you are right for the sake of argument

Then we'd have a sick society, and the question is whether or not we should have a set of American ideals to appeal to and argue from to get better. (Actually this question or need arises no matter what the diagnosis of america may be)

No matter where we may find ourselves, personally or politically as a country, we need guide-stars (ideals) to set our direction. Thus, I really question anybody who acts to undermine those ideals unless they actually and truly disagree with them. Undermining the ideals would then mean that a sick society would exist and there would be no realistic appeal that could be made for a better direction. That would definitely be worse.

Back to my true opinions, I believe in praising the good and criticizing the bad. So I will quote politicians of any party, even if my readers find some of the them to be, er, "devils." In that case then they are devils citing our Scriptures of Independence.

BOTTOM LINE: Paragraph 2 of the declaration of INdependence is the scripture of scriptures. Worthy anyone's study, it's even pretty short!! : )

by Paul Lehto (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 8:56:52 PM

Been around the block a few times.
Blue PilgrimBeen around the block a few times.

Here is an analogy

The US is like a carpet or piece of cloth -- it has a warp and a weft. The one is idealism, democracy, mother and apple pie -- the good stuff; the other is empire, war, racism, manifest destiny -- the bad stuff. LIke the threads in cloth, they operate in parallel, but do support each other, and are intimately tied to each other. That's why we invade a country, destroy it, and slaughter a million people in the name of bringing liberty and democracy: the thoughts run completely at right angles to each other, and one doesn't crowd out or compete with the other. Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and neither of them ever meet.

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 9:52:21 PM

Every war is "for peace" and for "good" all thru history

The only question is whether there will be ideals available at all to check and challenge that behavior, or whether only "foreign" challenges to the politics and policies of the US would be available and the behavior you complain of would be totally unchecked.

From your own worldview here, the US would rapidly worsen if there wasn't even the minor civilizing force of hypocrisy to contain it. Is that what you are pushing for? What would you like to see happen here? Do you believe that hypocrisy makes the ideals themselves look bad?

by Paul Lehto (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 10:30:19 PM

Name the ideal, name the violation

If you get specific with an ideal and its violation, either the hypocrisy is huge in which case you just keep focus on the hypocrisy and the situation can't be stable at that level. Or, the hypocrisy is minor or nonexistent in which case your analogy above doesn't hold at all. But there is no reason for an ideal and its violation to exist longterm other than a complete failure of people such as yourself to draw attention to it, and STAY there.

Focus may be a problem. You don't focus on the article as a whole, since you don't address elections whatsoever. Instead you choose to attack ideals without which you'd have no basis even for your very own anti-war critique.

Where do you think American antiwar philosophy originated? I can give you plenty of antiwar quotes from Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Paine and others. If you cut there sources off, your ideas, from an american perspective, are just your own personal ramblings of unconnected opinion. If not grounding in american values and history, where do you propose to ground your arguments and why do you think that is more effective than grounding arguments in american values and history?

by Paul Lehto (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments) on Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 10:39:02 PM

Been around the block a few times.
Blue PilgrimBeen around the block a few times.

disconnect

(I meant to say do NOT operate in parallel).

When we talk of hypocracy we generally mean it to be a moral failure rather than a cognitive deficite, but the mind -- the brain -- is configured to tolerate hypocracy and dissonance. We can do much to train ourselves away from that through studying critical thinking, decision making, meditative techniques, and other mind disciplines -- but most people don't do that. Instead they often hold two or more opposing ideas and ignore the contradictions -- which is why logical argument so often fails to convince people. People like to have things decided neatly; to know a thing with confidence, or to believe a thing.

The issue then becomes whether ideals will inform decisions and actions. Often they do not, and the arguments made are not logical because the underlying thinking lacks integrity -- does not 'come together'. Often decisions are made from emotion, or being talked into something, or from a long held belief (even if that contradicts some other belief). Thoughts tend to run to either-or, black or white, like a basketball going into the basket or not, but virtually never sitting on the rim. Once the 'decision' is made the mind tends to collect justifications and dismiss refutations.

Attacking Iraq may have been supported -- strongly supported -- originally by a belief it was a threat to security. Along with that, then, ideas of American superiority, freeing Iraqis from tyranny, and so forth are invoked to build the case and justify the decision. Even when the WMDs are not found and it becomes obvious there was no reason to attack, those supporting justification remain, and are bolstered or transformed to avoid admitting that one was fooled or mistaken. So now the argument is that even if was a mistake to invade we have to stay there because we still have to bring democracy, that NOW it IS a threat to our security if we leave (the terrorists will follow us here), and so forth. Those who engineered the war and propaganda understand this, and feed the people those things they want to hear, or need to hear for the occupation to continue to be acceptable.

That's the problem with ideals: they may exist and yet not be applied, or be applied in a distoted way. And the psychological urge to 'stay on course' is strong. Once someone is invested in a pyramid scheme, for instance, they resist seeing the truth far more vigorously than if they thought about it going in in the first place. In actuallity, the ideals (bring democracy to the world) may be one of the strongest forces for driving the nation into war. There is a quote somewhere -- something like 'if someone came to me determined to do everything they could to help, I would do my best to leave town'.

It isn't that hypocracy makes ideals look bad, but that they can easily become too much of a good thing. Ideals canbe dangerous -- that's why ideologues are dangerous -- that's why the PNACers did so much damage: trying to impose their ideals of glorious empire on the world ---- yes there was also greed involved, but thier 'New American Century' is very appealing to the idealogue. Very similar to the Crusades when (grabbing land aside, for the moment) they were going to convert everyone into good Christians -- and we the same force from the Muslim extremists, the zionist's quest for the promised land, the great vision of the communists, the Thousand Year Reich, the Pax Romana -- all driven by idealism overlaid onto the baser desires.

Consider (what you said) "Thus, it is the government's #1 job to secure you your inalienable rights, to guarantee them and make them real.", and right there you should find a major flaw. There is truth in that -- but there is also the undercurrent of the government being powerful enough to assign and arrange rights, and 'take care of' people instead the people arranging and taking care of government -- which should be synonomous with the people. It is the really the people's job to secure their own rights, with the government not a cause but a product of the people's actions and decisions. You see how the disconect creeps in? How the focus is shifted to the goal and the process is forgotten?

There are many questions here -- whether ideals exist is not the only one at all. Another question is what else exists? What is the totality of the system?

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Thursday, July 5, 2007 at 1:18:21 AM

Responding to BluePilgrim's interesting points here

Blue Pilgrim wrote that there is a danger with ideologues. That's true, but it is far more dangerous to have one's basic rights not recognized or treated as somehow dangerous to apply because they may be misinterpreted. Yes, free speech could be misconstrued by the Supreme Court but far more dangerous is the notion that all ideals/rights are dangerous or problematic.

The Founders already set up the basic notion that we are born with our rights, they are not granted to us by government. Thus when BluePilgrim bemoans a government powerful enough to "assign" rights he is agreeing with the Founders, not realizing that the Founders attempted to and did provide ideals and rights to protect against that, and yet using that basic revolution in the philosophy of rights AGAINST those very same Founders.

Rights are a very special class of Ideals, so much so that we should probably separate the two because rights carry mandatory obligations on the part of others to respect them. This is the very special class of ideals we are talking about. A pure ideal would be civility, but note that when the ideal of civility clashes with the right of free speech, free speech prevails and we do have a first amendment right to be obnoxious, or rather the government may not prohibit obnoxious communications (at least the first time, not repeated for harassment) consistent with the First Amendment.

As Blue Pilgrim sees it, ideals can be dangerous because of ideologues. But the only protection against the government short of force we don't want to use is RIGHTS (a form of ideals). Thus, the whole notion of equivocation or confusion or mixed messages regarding rights is extraordinarily destructive and dangerous to your own personal protection and your country's health.

Sure, rights can be misconstrued, but you are literally infinitely worse off with no conceptions of rights at all - since then what can be done TO you by the government or somebody else is unlimited by anything except your own ability to use force in self-defense. Is this what you want? Or would you rather embrace rights with their risks of being misinterpreted by ideologues?

by Paul Lehto (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments) on Thursday, July 5, 2007 at 1:27:57 PM