On the cusp of 2012's end, I should like to make a brief series of comments on various issues that came to the forefront during this year of our Lord.
1) Mayan Madness
Perhaps it remains a spectacle of an overly paranoid counter culture, but many in the US had been hearing whispers of an apparent 'end of the world' to take place at the end of the Mayan calender. Needless to say, I type these words very much alive and well with no end of all things having taken place.
In fact, the degree to which this very strange conspiracy theory was taken seriously is truly alarming to all those who value the sanctity of society. From the passing laugh about the end of the world being nigh to the LSD infused wild eyed paranoid schizophrenic ranting about some Mayan prophecy - the 'End of the World' thing took hold in 2012 in a way not seen since Christians began spouting off about similar things some years ago. I can only hope that those who took this whole business seriously can laugh amiably as their apocalypse degenerates into laughable Y2K joke territory. Good riddance to squandered fear.
2) POTUS Election 2012
The election, which contrary to those who feel Politalk has been ignoring politics was covered extensively by myself and R.T., was monumentous to a fair degree. I think one talking head was irritatingly correct when they mentioned that Republicans were "shellshocked" by the outcome.
One thing that deserves mention is that though the election resulted as such due to manifold factors one little secret the D.E.M. doesn't want you to know which may have turned the tides in favor of the Regime is thus; The democract establishment machine pooled money collected from taxpayers via Organized Labor and put it to use "getting out the vote". Billions of dollars were facilitated for use in anything from robo-calls in swing states to literally bussing dispassionate democrat voters into to early voting stations. All of this was orchestrated by none other than Domestic Democracy United's mortal enemy - Labor Unions.
It ain't cheating, but it certainly reeks of "Chicago-Style" politics.
No surprise there...
3) Mass Shootings
I'll only discuss this breifly as I'm certain this is still a sore spot for many in our nation.
However, there are now basically three solutions to the problem presented by the rash of mass shootings that have occurred this year that have been advanced:
a. Increased Security (i.e. more guns)
b. Weapons Bans
c. New legislation prohibiting those with mental illness from procuring guns
Increased security is the most republican proposal of all of them. The NRA recently advanced a 'hard' version of this by advising that we have armed gaurds in all schools. A bit much, however not entirely a terrible idea without merit.
A weapons ban is the most mainline solution, which most likely will be unsuccessful either in passing through congress or, potentially, preventing the crime itself. However, again, not without serious basis and warrant.
What seems to be emerging as a new alternative is preventing those with mental illness from owning guns through some type of nuanced legislation. This is, without a doubt, the way forward to solving this problem - and I hope this is advanced next year seriously.
It is not, again, an idea without good reason behind it... though the pragmatic realities of prohibiting every person diagnosed with, say, depression from owning a gun presents some very serious problematics - not to mention the whole problem of increasing mental healthcare and the more serious issues involved in such proposals.
Well - that's all.
Stick with politalk in 2013. More to come, more to say, thanks for reading!
Brendan O'Connell
Domestic Democracy United
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
The Service Ethics: Why Serve?
In an era where most people instinctively serve themselves first, we should inquire to ourselves in the spirit of charity what purpose service has in our society and the role of putting others first plays in civilization more generally. Why serve?
The question remains an important one for the developement of an ethics in a peoples.
Is it because by serving others - by "giving" ourselves to the service of individuals rather than ourselves - we make flesh that important sentiment the founders conceived of over 400 years ago? That sentiment known as "compassion"?
Certainly.
What about the sense in which one often puts oneself at a disadvantage when putting others before oneself?
Well, I'd wager, that's entirely the rub of service ethics. Capitalism thrives not, as popularly misconceived, on selfishness and the virtue of greed. Capitalism and Democracy rather function on putting others before oneself, even if to the misfortune of oneself.
Capitalism repays self-effacement - if at very least on ones deathbed.
But what about those scrooges who will proffer that to truly serve others or humankind as an absraction is simply the result of an idealistic morality which gives ample quiet rest to an exceptionally degenerate corporatist hegemony in need of tranquilization?
I'd counter that not only is the Hobbesian "nasty, brutish and short" analysis of human life itself a, to put it mildly, nihilistic worldview - but further, human kind has historically subsisted off of relationships characteristically and intrinsically defined by their co-operative nature.
Technology, music, entire kingdoms would have been incapable of suceeding and hence providing us with an ample stage upon which to live our own lives were it not for the pervasive prescence of such universal human sentiments as kindness, empathy, sympathy, selflessness, and yea- service.
Even an act of war is service.
And as troops come home from deployment and celebrate the holidays - I'd proffer in counterpoint to the stodgey anti-american scrooges - we should all look into our heart of hearts and find the best way to serve Christ by serving others.
R.T. Stillwell
Domestic Democracy United
The question remains an important one for the developement of an ethics in a peoples.
Is it because by serving others - by "giving" ourselves to the service of individuals rather than ourselves - we make flesh that important sentiment the founders conceived of over 400 years ago? That sentiment known as "compassion"?
Certainly.
What about the sense in which one often puts oneself at a disadvantage when putting others before oneself?
Well, I'd wager, that's entirely the rub of service ethics. Capitalism thrives not, as popularly misconceived, on selfishness and the virtue of greed. Capitalism and Democracy rather function on putting others before oneself, even if to the misfortune of oneself.
Capitalism repays self-effacement - if at very least on ones deathbed.
But what about those scrooges who will proffer that to truly serve others or humankind as an absraction is simply the result of an idealistic morality which gives ample quiet rest to an exceptionally degenerate corporatist hegemony in need of tranquilization?
I'd counter that not only is the Hobbesian "nasty, brutish and short" analysis of human life itself a, to put it mildly, nihilistic worldview - but further, human kind has historically subsisted off of relationships characteristically and intrinsically defined by their co-operative nature.
Technology, music, entire kingdoms would have been incapable of suceeding and hence providing us with an ample stage upon which to live our own lives were it not for the pervasive prescence of such universal human sentiments as kindness, empathy, sympathy, selflessness, and yea- service.
Even an act of war is service.
And as troops come home from deployment and celebrate the holidays - I'd proffer in counterpoint to the stodgey anti-american scrooges - we should all look into our heart of hearts and find the best way to serve Christ by serving others.
R.T. Stillwell
Domestic Democracy United
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Taking Risks in Increasingly Regulated Publik Worldhood
What is worldhood? What does it mean to be 'in-the-world'? What, yea- is the 'worldhood-of-the-world'? Well, I pose this question in the context of the terminology of Martin Heidegger, but not to make exacting philosophical remarks but to lay the horizon upon which one can discuss the meaning of the potential Obamatax increase in the oft obliquely understood taxation of U.S. citizens. I will make a short case for the idea that the incoming increase in taxation is more than simply an increase on out of pocket expenses paid to the gov'ment. Further, it is more than simply an expanse of federal/state power and prevalence. What next years taxation deal really means is - to a fine point - more governmental control and dominance over, of necessity, sovereign citizens (i.e. all legal U.S. citizens). Civilians on the street, come next year, will find themselves in an even more 'progressive' world. This would be meaningless if it were not for the ontology of being-in-the-world.
Taxing the rich is, to some, a clear form of social justice-style class warfare. Perhaps you've encountered this argument before. Why this has meaning beyond the apparent is that when one, say - as a president - decides to make anti-wealth rhetoric a keystone of their pitch to increase taxation on all citizens, one is engaging in a form of downwardly-mobile governmental collectivism. The effects of such policy decisions - not to mention the existent value system which is part and parcel with the neo-progressive 'cause' - can only truly be understood in terms of Freedom in light of certain phenomenological underpinnings regarding what Martin Heidegger, disciple of Holderlin, Kierkegaard and Czech Jew Husserl who spawned the methodological level upon which Heidegger posited an horizon of understanding, termed the "Worldhood-of-the-World".
It's a basic "what do these formalizations in D.C. really mean for us - pragmatically?"
I'm far from a scholar - but let's look at the facts...
We are, unequivocally, 'in' a world. That is, we are 'beings' (i.e. entities) that are constantly 'being' (i.e. existing) in the 'world' or a 'world'. Being as such, we have what is known as 'worldhood'. We have a manner of being that is consistent with and partially constitutive of what we understand as the world. This is, proximally and for the most part, an everyday understanding. It is, as Hegel noted, a world of, again - proximally and for the most part - merely apparent phenomenological apprehension... Which is to say, you can't, say... see an atom, or accurately predict weather from your seat in your car as you drive to an engagement such as work.
So what is our 'apparent' worldhood? What is constitutive of it?
My answer is, it is not apparent. This isn't to imply some sort of grand mystery - but simply to note that Obama has an impact on our worldhood. He, and his regime, actively distort, engineer/impact, or make existent objects of consciousness that constitute our world. If they didn't, and I understand this is a fairly conspiratorial thesis, they wouldn't have power...
So, you enjoy your objects of consciousness, correct?
What are objects of consciousness?
Well, whatever apparent verstehen one could conjur - you don't need a dictionary.
My thesis is thus - The increase in taxes post-2012 will directly parallel an increase in how manufactured our objects of consciousness are in their factical existance as part of our 'totality-of-tools' as americans.
Much of this is painfully pragmatic - an increase in federal regulation doesn't merely stifle business... it, in fact, has a relationship of esoteric interdependence.
My final point goes as such:
There is no such thing as 'interdependence'. 'Interdependence' is just a synonym for..........(scroll down)
.....for 'dependence'.
"Live for independence from downwardly directed intellectual malarky! Read Heidegger's 'Being and Time' (Zein und Zeit) in it's entirety! It comes more than highly recommended! Thanks and Seasons Greetings from Domestic Democracy United. Christ shall be in his kingly character in this- the year of our lord, 2012!"
Brendan O'Connell
Written while listening to Rush~
Disclaimer : Heidegger was a classico-socialist in germany during world war 2, and I hate to make apologetic - but sorry for referencing a Nazi during the holiday season... it's simply that Heidegger's Ontology IS the reigning formulation of 20th century philosophy, so to speak of ontology generally one MUST reference Heidegger extensively (this is understood in intellectual circles in the Continent). I am not nor have ever been a socialist - and am aware of the anti-socialism slant of my blog being somewhat in contradiction to my use of Heidegger in Politalk. It's simply, as someone who takes the intellectual realm seriously, that there is no way around Heidegger within contemporary Philosophy... and I truly feel sorry for the Neo-Utilitarians who fail to recognize the gravity of his Deconstruktion. "Basic Writings" is a shorter alternative to grappling with "Being...", though I must comment that his later writings, much as with Hegel and his "Phenomenology...", such as "Basic Writings" are far more politically Socialist than his 'non-ethics' in "Zein und Zeit".... So you know - pick up Basic Writings for the philosopher on yr X-Mas ;list... Available at most bookstore's philosophy section. Most copy's are brilliant red with large black font on the cover. But don't expect to understand H. without, at some point in your life, coming face to face with "Being...". In my defense, "Being..." was written far before the Nazi party became in vogue, not to mention dedicated to Husserl, the Czech Jew I mentioned previous. Again, in my defense, I read Basic Writings and literally threw it in the garbage can at a certain point where I realized that his later works are a bit more National Socialist than his early phenomenological work - "Being and Time".
Second Disclaimer : Please forgive 30 to 40 percent of comments I've made that appear overly hostile. If Gangnam Style-star Psy can get away with saying "kill the f_ing yankees" and then play live at the whitehouse surely a starve-crazed southern gent as myself can be forgiven of wandering into ideological terrain which should, in all likelyhood, remain redacted.
Taxing the rich is, to some, a clear form of social justice-style class warfare. Perhaps you've encountered this argument before. Why this has meaning beyond the apparent is that when one, say - as a president - decides to make anti-wealth rhetoric a keystone of their pitch to increase taxation on all citizens, one is engaging in a form of downwardly-mobile governmental collectivism. The effects of such policy decisions - not to mention the existent value system which is part and parcel with the neo-progressive 'cause' - can only truly be understood in terms of Freedom in light of certain phenomenological underpinnings regarding what Martin Heidegger, disciple of Holderlin, Kierkegaard and Czech Jew Husserl who spawned the methodological level upon which Heidegger posited an horizon of understanding, termed the "Worldhood-of-the-World".
It's a basic "what do these formalizations in D.C. really mean for us - pragmatically?"
I'm far from a scholar - but let's look at the facts...
We are, unequivocally, 'in' a world. That is, we are 'beings' (i.e. entities) that are constantly 'being' (i.e. existing) in the 'world' or a 'world'. Being as such, we have what is known as 'worldhood'. We have a manner of being that is consistent with and partially constitutive of what we understand as the world. This is, proximally and for the most part, an everyday understanding. It is, as Hegel noted, a world of, again - proximally and for the most part - merely apparent phenomenological apprehension... Which is to say, you can't, say... see an atom, or accurately predict weather from your seat in your car as you drive to an engagement such as work.
So what is our 'apparent' worldhood? What is constitutive of it?
My answer is, it is not apparent. This isn't to imply some sort of grand mystery - but simply to note that Obama has an impact on our worldhood. He, and his regime, actively distort, engineer/impact, or make existent objects of consciousness that constitute our world. If they didn't, and I understand this is a fairly conspiratorial thesis, they wouldn't have power...
So, you enjoy your objects of consciousness, correct?
What are objects of consciousness?
Well, whatever apparent verstehen one could conjur - you don't need a dictionary.
My thesis is thus - The increase in taxes post-2012 will directly parallel an increase in how manufactured our objects of consciousness are in their factical existance as part of our 'totality-of-tools' as americans.
Much of this is painfully pragmatic - an increase in federal regulation doesn't merely stifle business... it, in fact, has a relationship of esoteric interdependence.
My final point goes as such:
There is no such thing as 'interdependence'. 'Interdependence' is just a synonym for..........(scroll down)
.....for 'dependence'.
"Live for independence from downwardly directed intellectual malarky! Read Heidegger's 'Being and Time' (Zein und Zeit) in it's entirety! It comes more than highly recommended! Thanks and Seasons Greetings from Domestic Democracy United. Christ shall be in his kingly character in this- the year of our lord, 2012!"
Brendan O'Connell
Written while listening to Rush~
Disclaimer : Heidegger was a classico-socialist in germany during world war 2, and I hate to make apologetic - but sorry for referencing a Nazi during the holiday season... it's simply that Heidegger's Ontology IS the reigning formulation of 20th century philosophy, so to speak of ontology generally one MUST reference Heidegger extensively (this is understood in intellectual circles in the Continent). I am not nor have ever been a socialist - and am aware of the anti-socialism slant of my blog being somewhat in contradiction to my use of Heidegger in Politalk. It's simply, as someone who takes the intellectual realm seriously, that there is no way around Heidegger within contemporary Philosophy... and I truly feel sorry for the Neo-Utilitarians who fail to recognize the gravity of his Deconstruktion. "Basic Writings" is a shorter alternative to grappling with "Being...", though I must comment that his later writings, much as with Hegel and his "Phenomenology...", such as "Basic Writings" are far more politically Socialist than his 'non-ethics' in "Zein und Zeit".... So you know - pick up Basic Writings for the philosopher on yr X-Mas ;list... Available at most bookstore's philosophy section. Most copy's are brilliant red with large black font on the cover. But don't expect to understand H. without, at some point in your life, coming face to face with "Being...". In my defense, "Being..." was written far before the Nazi party became in vogue, not to mention dedicated to Husserl, the Czech Jew I mentioned previous. Again, in my defense, I read Basic Writings and literally threw it in the garbage can at a certain point where I realized that his later works are a bit more National Socialist than his early phenomenological work - "Being and Time".
Second Disclaimer : Please forgive 30 to 40 percent of comments I've made that appear overly hostile. If Gangnam Style-star Psy can get away with saying "kill the f_ing yankees" and then play live at the whitehouse surely a starve-crazed southern gent as myself can be forgiven of wandering into ideological terrain which should, in all likelyhood, remain redacted.
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