Political Systems and Nation States

[Anonymouse]

To the top.

[Anonymouse]

I won't let it die.

[surferarmo]

[quote][quote="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.

This is unsubstantiated. Your proof is nothing but mere philosophy. Look at it in practice rather than theory. Of course it isnt a free market when you have democrats in control. A free market is an extreme, and all extremems are dangerous, as communism has proven to be. Capitalism works just fine. If people wash away their apathy, they might start to mobilize, until then, they will use rheotoric that does not exist in the capacity that would disable people from mobilizing within the status quo. I will give SPECIFIC examples of this sort of rheotoric upon request.


[quote]

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.

Just like these philosophers, your philosophy is only validated by what people choose to believe. Maybe you are bullxxxx, and government is real. Maybe it is the opposite, maybe it is both, maybe it is neither. There has always existed some form of control and authority. If it is not man controlling man, it is the elements controlling man. The nomads were not able to conquer the elements like we are. They were subject to forces such as weather, food supply, plague, etc... We are under a different kind of control. We made government, of course we did, I am not denying that, but it was made because we conquered the elements which was our governement before our time. Elements are nothing to us. COld water wont stop me from surfing, I have a wetsuit. You wont stop a farmer from growing food, there are green houses and trade from other parts of the world where our winter is their summer.

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.

I find it hard to believe that Bush, would allow the attacks to happen. I also find it hard to believe that FDR, would have let such a thing happen to Pearl Harbor. If you want to get into this, I will be glad to. *Rolling up sleeves*

[Anonymouse]

This is unsubstantiated. Your proof is nothing but mere philosophy. Look at it in practice rather than theory. Of course it isnt a free market when you have democrats in control. A free market is an extreme, and all extremems are dangerous, as communism has proven to be. Capitalism works just fine. If people wash away their apathy, they might start to mobilize, until then, they will use rheotoric that does not exist in the capacity that would disable people from mobilizing within the status quo. I will give SPECIFIC examples of this sort of rheotoric upon request.

This is the same kind of blind thinking that refuses to take account of the situation outside of party politics. You view everything from within the scope of your party, while I place myself outside of it. The idea of politics and the state contradicts the idea of a free market. This isn't the mere ramblings of a conspiracy theorist or some pseudo political philosophy. History is riddled with the state interfering in the free market and the United States offers the best examples. The events surrounding the panic of 1907 which led to the establishment of the Federal Reserve, the events surrounding the crash of 29, and even now with all sorts of regulations and such, all contradict the idea of a free market. Perhaps the market isn't as "free" as we think it is. One wonders about all those mysterious stock transactions and the foreknowledge of how to manipulate the market that went on right before 9/11.

Just like these philosophers, your philosophy is only validated by what people choose to believe. Maybe you are bullxxxx, and government is real. Maybe it is the opposite, maybe it is both, maybe it is neither. There has always existed some form of control and authority. If it is not man controlling man, it is the elements controlling man. The nomads were not able to conquer the elements like we are. They were subject to forces such as weather, food supply, plague, etc... We are under a different kind of control. We made government, of course we did, I am not denying that, but it was made because we conquered the elements which was our governement before our time. Elements are nothing to us. COld water wont stop me from surfing, I have a wetsuit. You wont stop a farmer from growing food, there are green houses and trade from other parts of the world where our winter is their summer.

You see you are missing the point here surfer. This isn't about organization and order. Organization and order have existed as far back as we can remember and it is all based on the cooperation of human beings. The State has nothing to do with this. The State only exists where politics exists. And all politics really is, is the States ability to make decisions about us and our property. Politics and the -isms that followed such as capitalism, marxism, darwinism, etc., all take their roots during the Enlightenment. Strangely enough it is during the enlightenment where we have the first nation state with the unification of Germany, as well as other myths such as "social contract". All the State really is, and all politics really is, is about who gets to make decisions about what. Take a look at property ownership in terms of control, who gets to make decisions about the item of property is the effective owner, regardless of titles or other mindless xxxx. Consider the broader social implications of "property." This isn't about "things," but about the relationships of people to one another concerning the question, who gets to make decisions about what? in other words, who gets to make decisions about the lives and other property interests of people? Will individuals do this for themselves, or will others exercise such authority over them, such as the State?

Individual liberty and the private ownership of property are synonymous concepts. To enjoy liberty is to exercise unrestricted authority over not only your life, but over those extensions of your life that we have come to regard as property. Because every living thing must occupy space and be able to consume external sources of energy in order to continue existing, the property question goes to the very essence of life itself and once again we find the artificial state meddling its nose in this sector of life as well. What can be said about people who insist upon their unrestricted liberty, and those who are prepared to accept restrictions that others, the state mainly, have placed upon that liberty? The former will vigorously oppose such intrusions. There are within such people, a kind of spiritual imperative that will not allow for the subjugation of those autonomous qualities that give expression to all of life. On the other hand, those people that have been conditioned and tamed to have some authority put shackles and limitations on their liberty, their response to further restrictions will amount to little more than a plea for indulgences. Their systematic conditioning has alienated them from the life spirit for so long that, their aspirations reach no further than to be well fed, well cared for, and made secure from fears and the State is eager to relieve the masses of this, or so only in rhetoric.

It's because of the abandonment of the property principle that we now experience in statism, what Hobbes saw as a "condition of war of every one against every one" and for which he envisioned the state as a solution. Since Hobbes, we have had three and a half centuries of experience with statism from which to judge the consequences of restricting the liberties of free men and women. Given the 200 million humans killed by wars and genocides in the 20th century alone, the depressions and other economic dislocations caused by state intrusion into the marketplace, and the countless number of intergroup conflicts and bloodbaths perpetrated all over the globe, it is the state that has to be on the defensive, not individual liberty. It is the state systematically regulating and despoiling our property interests who are greater threats to our well being than the occasional muggers or murderers.

[patlajan]

The majority of your manifesto has been directly copied and pasted from the following source:

http://www.freedom.org/front/essay/04.html

Apparently this is the writing of a professor from South Western University Law School, and not our resident pseudo-intellectual mouse. Now go in a corner and hide, come back when you have something original to say. ops:

[surferarmo]

This is unsubstantiated. Your proof is nothing but mere philosophy. Look at it in practice rather than theory. Of course it isnt a free market when you have democrats in control. A free market is an extreme, and all extremems are dangerous, as communism has proven to be. Capitalism works just fine. If people wash away their apathy, they might start to mobilize, until then, they will use rheotoric that does not exist in the capacity that would disable people from mobilizing within the status quo. I will give SPECIFIC examples of this sort of rheotoric upon request.

This is the same kind of blind thinking that refuses to take account of the situation outside of party politics. You view everything from within the scope of your party, while I place myself outside of it. The idea of politics and the state contradicts the idea of a free market. This isn't the mere ramblings of a conspiracy theorist or some pseudo political philosophy. History is riddled with the state interfering in the free market and the United States offers the best examples. The events surrounding the panic of 1907 which led to the establishment of the Federal Reserve, the events surrounding the crash of 29, and even now with all sorts of regulations and such, all contradict the idea of a free market. Perhaps the market isn't as "free" as we think it is. One wonders about all those mysterious stock transactions and the foreknowledge of how to manipulate the market that went on right before 9/11.

If my thinking is confined to the inside like you assume, then your thinking is confined to the outside. Step inside every now and then, you will see something totally different.

Just like these philosophers, your philosophy is only validated by what people choose to believe. Maybe you are bullxxxx, and government is real. Maybe it is the opposite, maybe it is both, maybe it is neither. There has always existed some form of control and authority. If it is not man controlling man, it is the elements controlling man. The nomads were not able to conquer the elements like we are. They were subject to forces such as weather, food supply, plague, etc... We are under a different kind of control. We made government, of course we did, I am not denying that, but it was made because we conquered the elements which was our governement before our time. Elements are nothing to us. COld water wont stop me from surfing, I have a wetsuit. You wont stop a farmer from growing food, there are green houses and trade from other parts of the world where our winter is their summer.

You see you are missing the point here surfer. This isn't about organization and order. Organization and order have existed as far back as we can remember and it is all based on the cooperation of human beings. The State has nothing to do with this. The State only exists where politics exists. And all politics really is, is the States ability to make decisions about us and our property. Politics and the -isms that followed such as capitalism, marxism, darwinism, etc., all take their roots during the Enlightenment. Strangely enough it is during the enlightenment where we have the first nation state with the unification of Germany, as well as other myths such as "social contract". All the State really is, and all politics really is, is about who gets to make decisions about what. Take a look at property ownership in terms of control, who gets to make decisions about the item of property is the effective owner, regardless of titles or other mindless xxxx. Consider the broader social implications of "property." This isn't about "things," but about the relationships of people to one another concerning the question, who gets to make decisions about what? in other words, who gets to make decisions about
the lives and other property interests of people? Will individuals do this for themselves, or will others exercise such authority over them, such as the State?

Anon, you have contradicted yourself. Where there is control, there is politics. Where there are people, there are interests, and interests equate to politics. Politics is not only the exertion of power. It does not only involve congress, and representatives, and a President...by all means, it is more than that. Who ever has control, has authority. Who ever has authority has legitimacy. Political legitimacy that is, when someone or a country is recognized by others, that person is politcally legitamate. Therefore, authority and control spawn politics and interests. If you want to use philosophers I will use some. Aristotle believes that politics, in practical or philosophical form is birthed from the social interactions of daily life. The pater familius, slave and owner, husband and wife, parent and child: all these control relationships have transfered into politics. Man and women were around during the enlightenment. This means that husband and wife, parent and child, and owner and slave have existed during the enlightenment. The enlightenment basically took these control relationships and put them into words, and articulated them into constitutions and into laws. Politics has always existed. To say it hasnt is to say that a human being has never interacted with a human being, and we know this is not true.

[surferarmo]

The majority of your manifesto has been directly copied and pasted from the following source:

http://www.freedom.org/front/essay/04.html

Apparently this is the writing of a professor from South Western University Law School, and not our resident pseudo-intellectual mouse. Now go in a corner and hide, come back when you have something original to say. ops:

I have been arguing with a proffessor this whole time!! And I did pretty good.

[Anonymouse]

The majority of your manifesto has been directly copied and pasted from the following source:

http://www.freedom.org/front/essay/04.html

Apparently this is the writing of a professor from South Western University Law School, and not our resident pseudo-intellectual mouse. Now go in a corner and hide, come back when you have something original to say. ops:

I commend your investigative efforts on exposing my copy and paste. You know I really don't care when I'm high at 2 am. I loved every bit of that.




This presents us with a problem. I never claimed to be an intellectual, nor for that matter can I be a pseudo intellectual. In fact, I'm neither. You have done your job in doing everything to expose me, you win in that category, but you have failed in everything relating to the topic, thus is born a classic case of the message vs the messenger. In fact your overall contribution to the forums has been marginal at best. What response do you have for the content?

[Anonymouse]

The majority of your manifesto has been directly copied and pasted from the following source:

http://www.freedom.org/front/essay/04.html

Apparently this is the writing of a professor from South Western University Law School, and not our resident pseudo-intellectual mouse. Now go in a corner and hide, come back when you have something original to say. ops:

I have been arguing with a proffessor this whole time!! And I did pretty good.

Oh you argued galantly mr. surfer. 8)

[Anonymouse]

This is unsubstantiated. Your proof is nothing but mere philosophy. Look at it in practice rather than theory. Of course it isnt a free market when you have democrats in control. A free market is an extreme, and all extremems are dangerous, as communism has proven to be. Capitalism works just fine. If people wash away their apathy, they might start to mobilize, until then, they will use rheotoric that does not exist in the capacity that would disable people from mobilizing within the status quo. I will give SPECIFIC examples of this sort of rheotoric upon request.

This is the same kind of blind thinking that refuses to take account of the situation outside of party politics. You view everything from within the scope of your party, while I place myself outside of it. The idea of politics and the state contradicts the idea of a free market. This isn't the mere ramblings of a conspiracy theorist or some pseudo political philosophy. History is riddled with the state interfering in the free market and the United States offers the best examples. The events surrounding the panic of 1907 which led to the establishment of the Federal Reserve, the events surrounding the crash of 29, and even now with all sorts of regulations and such, all contradict the idea of a free market. Perhaps the market isn't as "free" as we think it is. One wonders about all those mysterious stock transactions and the foreknowledge of how to manipulate the market that went on right before 9/11.

If my thinking is confined to the inside like you assume, then your thinking is confined to the outside. Step inside every now and then, you will see something totally different.

Just like these philosophers, your philosophy is only validated by what people choose to believe. Maybe you are bullxxxx, and government is real. Maybe it is the opposite, maybe it is both, maybe it is neither. There has always existed some form of control and authority. If it is not man controlling man, it is the elements controlling man. The nomads were not able to conquer the elements like we are. They were subject to forces such as weather, food supply, plague, etc... We are under a different kind of control. We made government, of course we did, I am not denying that, but it was made because we conquered the elements which was our governement before our time. Elements are nothing to us. COld water wont stop me from surfing, I have a wetsuit. You wont stop a farmer from growing food, there are green houses and trade from other parts of the world where our winter is their summer.

You see you are missing the point here surfer. This isn't about organization and order. Organization and order have existed as far back as we can remember and it is all based on the cooperation of human beings. The State has nothing to do with this. The State only exists where politics exists. And all politics really is, is the States ability to make decisions about us and our property. Politics and the -isms that followed such as capitalism, marxism, darwinism, etc., all take their roots during the Enlightenment. Strangely enough it is during the enlightenment where we have the first nation state with the unification of Germany, as well as other myths such as "social contract". All the State really is, and all politics really is, is about who gets to make decisions about what. Take a look at property ownership in terms of control, who gets to make decisions about the item of property is the effective owner, regardless of titles or other mindless xxxx. Consider the broader social implications of "property." This isn't about "things," but about the relationships of people to one another concerning the question, who gets to make decisions about what? in other words, who gets to make decisions about
the lives and other property interests of people? Will individuals do this for themselves, or will others exercise such authority over them, such as the State?

Anon, you have contradicted yourself. Where there is control, there is politics. Where there are people, there are interests, and interests equate to politics. Politics is not only the exertion of power. It does not only involve congress, and representatives, and a President...by all means, it is more than that. Who ever has control, has authority. Who ever has authority has legitimacy. Political legitimacy that is, when someone or a country is recognized by others, that person is politcally legitamate. Therefore, authority and control spawn politics and interests. If you want to use philosophers I will use some. Aristotle believes that politics, in practical or philosophical form is birthed from the social interactions of daily life. The pater familius, slave and owner, husband and wife, parent and child: all these control relationships have transfered into politics. Man and women were around during the enlightenment. This means that husband and wife, parent and child, and owner and slave have existed during the enlightenment. The enlightenment basically took these control relationships and put them into words, and articulated them into constitutions and into laws. Politics has always existed. To say it hasnt is to say that a human being has never interacted with a human being, and we know this is not true.

This isn't about social relations or interactions surfer. The way you use the word 'politics' in this reply is exactly that. Politics can mean a variety of things as well as religion. We've been through this before. My love for the sport of mixed martial arts is like a religion. That is not to say that it is referring to organized religion. The politics I speak of is the profession that deals with governing, political affairs, enforcing and writing laws and such, basically the thing that deals with the -isms that sprung from the Enlightenment.