Political Systems and Nation States

[surferarmo]

Anonymous. This conversation reminds me of existentialism. The Nation-State is a concept with artificial boundaries. The only thing that keeps it in existance, that makes it real is the human ability to create meaning. The nation state and nationalism provides a purpose for us in life. We create meaning in every aspect of our lives. For instance, the relationship we have with our parents. That is artificial. We are born, so what, we love our parents...why? I love my parents, but I created that meaning. It isnt real, but I made it real. Nothing says I have to. Even if you believe in God, it is known that familial ties, and covenants are not recognized in Heaven. I created meaning in surfing, in politics. People strive to find meaning, to make things important. You have made important philosophy, and exploration of thought. With out it, you would have no purpose, no security. People have trouble decidiing on a major in college because they need to be secure, they need to find their nitch in life. THey need to find something that means something to them, so they have a secure purpose. This purpose brings security. We are all driven by this. That is why if I was to ask. What if there was no nation state, and we were completely isolated? No one could answer. If I asked, Why do you need to find something to do, something to be good at? No one could give me an answer past "Because I need a job." Even a job is something we created. It is artificial, we put meaning into that job, we put meaning into money. I just wanted to touch on the fact of existentialism, interesting stuff.

[surferarmo]

To the top.

[Anonymouse]

Indeed.

Actually the other day I offered a response to your recent post on this thread and it was quite lengthy and I had included alot f things, but then it froze and all was lost so then I got pissed and now I'm kind of in hesitant mode to type it all again.

I'm waiting for inspiration.

[surferarmo]

IF i was next to you, I would say. "I got your inspiration right here" (while holding up my fist) 8)

[Anonymouse]

Are you into fisting?

[jahannam]

why you wanna start a fight club?

[sSsflamesSs]

I don't believe fighting is what he meant by fisting.

[jahannam]

I don't care what he meant... I got it as that!HA!

[Anonymouse]

Anonymous. This conversation reminds me of existentialism. The Nation-State is a concept with artificial boundaries. The only thing that keeps it in existance, that makes it real is the human ability to create meaning. The nation state and nationalism provides a purpose for us in life. We create meaning in every aspect of our lives. For instance, the relationship we have with our parents. That is artificial. .

Now that I have found some time to respond to this I will gladly do so. First of all, I disagree with the above because as I have repetitively stated, and you can go back and read my posts in this thread as proof, that nation states replace the natural order of people with regard to each other with something illusory and artificial. For example, political systems contradict the idea of a "free market". One would have thought that a group of people who believed in "free markets" would be astute enough to recognize the self interest motivations that underlie all human behavior and would further perceive that creating an instrumentality of coercive power such as a government, would be far too dangerous a temptation to place before men and women. No more than should a bowl of candy be placed before a group of children with the expectation that it not be touched, should we expect political systems to be immune from mischief. Your analogy between nation states and our biological parents is illogical and uncomparable. The nation state concept of nationalism doesn't provide a purpose, it provides slavery, indirectly and unconsciously, to supporting the state. That is why I believe the Matrix was one of the most revolutionary movies, allegorical and synonomous with how our society is. Most of humanity is living in this Matrix, not necessarily per the lines of the movie, but overall gullibility, naivity and ignorance - prisoners of the state.

We are born, so what, we love our parents...why? I love my parents, but I created that meaning. It isnt real, but I made it real. Nothing says I have to. Even if you believe in God, it is known that familial ties, and covenants are not recognized in Heaven. I created meaning in surfing, in politics. People strive to find meaning, to make things important.

Again I have to disagree with your analogy here for you are trying to compare something so aesthetic such as love, to something artificial that creates classification systems and organizations such as FEMA, or NAFTA, or WTO, or NSA, or FBI. You were born of your mother and therefore there are inborn and innate characteristics you have received from your mother and father genetically, and obviously psychologically. How can you compare the love of your mother and father to something like the FBI or other government facitilies? That "love" you didn't create for you were too small to even comprehend such abstract ideas. Some philosophers say we create meaning, others say we already have meaning, and there is no way to validate either claim except you choose what you want to believe. None of this has the slightest to do with what I mean by nation states and I have thoroughly defined it in all my previous posts.

You have made important philosophy, and exploration of thought. With out it, you would have no purpose, no security. People have trouble decidiing on a major in college because they need to be secure, they need to find their nitch in life. THey need to find something that means something to them, so they have a secure purpose. This purpose brings security. We are all driven by this. That is why if I was to ask. What if there was no nation state, and we were completely isolated? No one could answer. If I asked, Why do you need to find something to do, something to be good at? No one could give me an answer past "Because I need a job." Even a job is something we created. It is artificial, we put meaning into that job, we put meaning into money. I just wanted to touch on the fact of existentialism, interesting stuff.

Existentialism, while interesting, is just another ism, like nationalism, or patriotism, or any other ism you can think of, even libertarianism. Be careful what for -isms that claim to have answers to everything. That is how deception occurs. I fail to see how it relates to our idea of nation states and what nation states stand for in our daily lives, but it was none theless interesting for you to raise it.

As far as your reference to security, to argue that nation states provide security is a fallacy. If you disagree I will be glad to go more in depth into this. The whole idea of "limited government" is a fallacy as well. Nation states cannot provide security. They can't provide security for you from robbers, rapists, killers, etc. They couldn't provide security from Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor, nor could they provide security from the WTC attacks. Hell in fact, there is enough evidence to even show that the government manipulated these events to create and allow it to happen to further its own ends. Why do you not think that would be a possibility? This concept opens up a whole new can of worms.

[Anonymouse]

Without the nation, you wouldn't have a computer to type on

What does a nation have anything to do with the production and creation of a computer? Firstly, the idea and invention of a computer can be attributed to individual, not the collective. The masses have nothing to do with creativity. Secondly, what does the state have to do with production?

Believe it or not, alot of and almost all of our problems exist in society because there's a general failure to respect the inviolability of one another’s property interests.

By "property" I don't refer to some lifeless term, but rather a manner of describing a state of being that is essential to us all. Since all of us and everything occupies space and consumes energy outside of itself in order to survive, we do so at the expense of other things. There's obviously no way I could have produced or come up with the idea of the computer myself. Many other people who were unable to produce the computer themselves
cooperated in its production. In other words, the State, Government, whatever you want to call it, had nothing to do with it. In fact most of the time the State is just there as a parasite to leech off peoples labor and creativity. Such cooperative undertakings have been possible because of a truth, acknowledged by students of marketplace economic systems. And if you know anything about economics you know that politics contradicts the idea of economics.

Of course this all leads to the most fundamental question of all, the essence of "owndership" and who gets to make decisions about what and whose property?