Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

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Expand view Topic review: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Define Sentient

by Bob Butler » Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:49 pm

Guest wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2024 8:43 pm
Bob Butler wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2024 1:45 pm
Provide reproductive health care.
Killing innocent babies in the womb is not "reproductive health care." It has nothing at all to do with health care. We can argue about whether killing innocent babies should be allowed, but we should use accurate terminology. I.E, respect the science.
Define sentient. I can agree killing sentients is wrong, and repeatedly asked the religious fanatics for a definition of sentience that would allow us to avoid that wrong. The closest I have come to such a definition is that beings which can use language are sentient. As we are the only species that uses language and the only species considered sentient, this seems to make sense. We seem otherwise to consider killing OK.

A fetus cannot use language. Provide an alternate definition of sentient which applies in the first two trimesters. Quoting a cultural religious prejudice is not science. Forcing others to abide by ones own religious practices is the establishment of an official government religioun, and not allowed.

Generational Dynamics and Gaza

by Bob Butler » Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:37 pm

John wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2024 3:55 pm
So are you pro-Hamas?
No. Neither am I for the Israeli attempt to expel the Palestinians from Gaza. Neither side is covering itself in glory. Both are using racial / religious prejudices to justify genocide, murdering the innocent and bombing hospitals.

The basic idea from Generational Dynamics is hating, oppressing and killing the different. Both Hamas and Israel are indulging in the instinct. As I have often said, one should expect other cultures to wallow in the instinct, but discourage it in your own. The old world is more blatant in their racism than we are. We may have had slaves, stolen native lands, denied the Irish jobs, etc, but we did not have Hitler's gas chambers, the Armenian genocide or the current Gaza fiasco. We have racially motivated spree killers and racist murdering cops, but not government organized genocide. I recognize that the instinct to hate, kill and oppress the different, but I would reject it where it is found and practiced, Including both Isriel's right wing government and Hamas.

I have been avoiding taking a position on the Gaza conflict for some time. It has taken some time for it to become clear. We'll see if it holds up.

Re: Cycles

by Guest » Thu Mar 28, 2024 8:43 pm

Bob Butler wrote:
Thu Mar 28, 2024 1:45 pm
Provide reproductive health care.
Killing innocent babies in the womb is not "reproductive health care." It has nothing at all to do with health care.
We can argue about whether killing innocent babies should be allowed, but we should use accurate terminology.
I.E, respect the science.

Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

by John » Thu Mar 28, 2024 3:55 pm

So are you pro-Hamas?

Cycles

by Bob Butler » Thu Mar 28, 2024 1:45 pm

n a way, Marx was right. The only way to force a king, czar or dictator out of power is through force, through revolution. Alas, what he got wrong was that the revolutionaries would advocate power for the revolutionaries, not for the people. If you don’t insert the Enlightenment principles in the revolutionary replacement government as the US founding fathers did, you have to do your revolution all over again.

There is a difference between conquest and containment. If you are attempting to acquire power through force, you are one of the bad guys. If you are trying to prevent people from acquiring power by force, you are not.

The Agricultural Age was a time when the kings ruled though superior force. It was not ideal. Eventually the Enlightenment ideals such as rule of law, equality, freedom, democracy and the like overcame it. Still, we are overcoming the cultural faults. There are still bigots. There are still people who try to enforce their religious beliefs on others. There are still criminals like Trump who will attempt to acquire power by evading the law. Our current culture is not perfect. Thus, there are still crises every four score and seven years, and still recurring new births of freedom.

What are the goals? Cure disease. Provide reproductive health care. Let each individual choose. Focus the economy. Prevent bigot cops from murder. Get rid of gerrymandering. Guarantee voting rights. In general, work for the benefit of the people rather than to acquire power. Let the party which best helps the people win enough votes to be trusted with power.

In a way the 2024 US election is an attempt to maintain the old agricultural age might make right autocracy. The domestic issues such as health care and gun control give the Democrats the advantage. If Ukraine can hang on that long, containment continues and Putin stalls. Xi cannot start anything. He struts a lot, but needs the oil which he knows will be blocked in a serious conflict. Trump is running into the rule of law.

This is turning into your typical crisis. The worst of the old culture tries to hang on to traditional flaws, but there are too many attempting to remove them. The solutions become a new set of values. Predict violence if you like. Bet against containment. Putin can’t beat the Ukraine, let alone NATO. China is collapsing without war. Trump is diverting election funds to defend against his habitual criminal acts.

Each crisis, the conservative concepts collapse and a new and better nation thrives. I see no reason not to expect it to happen again.

Re: Cycles

by FullMoon » Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:23 am

Bob Butler wrote:
Wed Mar 27, 2024 4:47 pm
Guest wrote:
Wed Mar 27, 2024 2:21 pm
The Left always eats its own.
The conservatives always collapse. The problem is solved. America improves. Colonial imperialism no more, slavery no more, authoritarian expansion resisted, bigotry resisted. It is the conservatives who end up getting eaten.
Because of depressingly regressive reprobates like this person BB, America will not survive this turning. And possibly humanity itself will not. But nation states will be redefined at the least. If we can maintain that level of complexity, after this very deep regression. Which is brought about by person's like BB, who think that they can force social changes like Stalin and Mao have already tried.
Luckily for these people, the disaster is a foreign war. But there won't be enough cohesion after the disaster in order to patch it together again. As Navigator has said about the war and aftermath, and it rapidly becomes VERY clear we're almost at that point . That's why all of the "progressive" wealthy are getting prepared as fast as possible. They don't want to be eaten.

Re: Cycles

by Bob Butler » Wed Mar 27, 2024 4:47 pm

Guest wrote:
Wed Mar 27, 2024 2:21 pm
The Left always eats its own.
The conservatives always collapse. The problem is solved. America improves. Colonial imperialism no more, slavery no more, authoritarian expansion resisted, bigotry resisted. It is the conservatives who end up getting eaten.

Re: Cycles

by Guest » Wed Mar 27, 2024 2:21 pm

Bob Butler wrote:
Wed Mar 27, 2024 1:53 pm
Another guest wrote:
Wed Mar 27, 2024 9:46 am
:shock:
Why America will not survive much longer.

Welcome to leftist America. Death is the only way out.
America does not remain the same. Every S&H crisis the conservatives try to maintain the problem, the progressives try to fix it, the conservatives fail, and in the following high the new values reflect the conservative failure. Wishing for the problems to perpetually exist is futile. You will be assimilated.

Next time around, the elites profiting from unsustainable exploitation of the planet and having excess influence over the government will fail. This crisis hasn't ended, but the resolution of the next seems perfectly clear. It is all over except for the crisis.
The Left always eats its own.

Cycles

by Bob Butler » Wed Mar 27, 2024 1:53 pm

Another guest wrote:
Wed Mar 27, 2024 9:46 am
:shock:
Why America will not survive much longer.

Welcome to leftist America. Death is the only way out.
America does not remain the same. Every S&H crisis the conservatives try to maintain the problem, the progressives try to fix it, the conservatives fail, and in the following high the new values reflect the conservative failure. Wishing for the problems to perpetually exist is futile. You will be assimilated.

Next time around, the elites profiting from unsustainable exploitation of the planet and having excess influence over the government will fail. This crisis hasn't ended, but the resolution of the next seems perfectly clear. It is all over except for the crisis.

Re: Applause

by Another guest » Wed Mar 27, 2024 9:46 am

Bob Butler wrote:
Wed Mar 27, 2024 9:15 am
Guest wrote:
Tue Mar 26, 2024 7:44 pm
No one should be applauding what has happened to Trump or his associates. Our country is so divided that we should all be sure we are standing for the "traditional" rule of law and we should not be accepting any ruling that has politicized the law no matter what side of the political spectrum we are associated with.

The rule of law has been shattered. The Left will do anything to derail Trump, including destroying the entire country.
There is no evidence of election fraud. There is no evidence that Biden has tried to influence the DoJ. Juries have indicted Tump for many crimes in what appear to be open and shut cases. Rule of law in white collar crime is far too slow with the election looming, but is functioning, if slowly.

People resist changing mindsets to the point of being unable to register facts. Still, after the peak of every crisis, the conservative worldview collapses. The values of independence, freedom and containment were accepted by the culture after the last three American crises. The values impressed during the high reflect the solutions to the prior crisis. This time around a collapse similar to those prior has already started. Congressmen are retiring. Election funds are being diverted to legal defense. Speakers come and go. Soon no attempt will be made declare an official religion and enforce religious doctrines. There will be no supporting of bigotry.

It is starting to look like no Republicans.

The US needs a second party. I'm not at all convinced enough will be left of the Republicans after the collapse. I see the next primary conflict being between elites who wish to profit against those that value the environment. The Republicans might well be champions of the elites if they survive. The elites might want to create a new party rather that be stuck with the baggage of the old.

Thus far, no evidence of a deliberate attack on the bridge. We will see what the investigation surfaces.
:shock:
Why America will not survive much longer.

Welcome to leftist America. Death is the only way out.

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