If I’m on the ‘right’ side, why would I make it easier for the other guy? If on the ‘wrong’ side, why not just switch sides? Why would I bother to straighten the tree? Against the wishes of those who have a lot to lose in the process?
From the other side of the looking glass, things are a lot simpler.
‘Fiat justitia, ruat caelum’ is a warning, not a behest.
‘Make sure that justice is served, unless you want the heavens to fall on your shoulders’ is what any open minded reader of history makes of this ancient adage…
The fact that we concentrate our attention on what justice means for each of us is a measure of our individualism. Of our nearsightedness…
Our respective individualities, each and everyone of them, have grown into what they are now in a social context. None of us can exist for long, let alone protect and develop their individuality, in solitude.
We need the others. We, each and everyone of us, need to belong. To a community.
To a functional community! To a community where each individual is cherished. Where each individual can develop its potential.
Where each individual has the opportunity and the tools to develop their potential. For his own good, in concert with the main interest of entire community.
Survival. Things remaining as they should be.
Us toiling here, on the surface of the Earth. The heavens perched safely up there.
Justice must be served if things are to remain as we, each and all of us, need them to be.
This morning I almost blew my top. I was listening to the radio. A usually decent station. Usually decent and, like all of us, imperfect.
The news anchor was interviewing an ‘expert’. An Ivy League Professor of International Relations and other blah-blahs. I’m not giving their names because I want them forgotten, not even more famous than they already are.
‘Is there any chance for this conflict to end in a negotiated manner?’ ‘Yes, if/when both sides will find a mutually acceptable solution. For example, if the Ukrainian side would accept a referendum in Donbass – and in Crimea, and if the Russian side would accept UN inspectors to validate the process. This would be in line with the general accepted policy of self-determination and ….’
OK, and where’s the difference between what Putin keeps saying and what I’ve just heard?!?
Two non-Ukrainians telling Ukraine what to do…
I’m going to set aside, for now, what these two – wait, three! – people are saying. That Ukraine, the Ukrainian People, should give up a piece of their land. My immediate interest lies in ‘who these three guys think they are’?!?
OK, only those who don’t want to see haven’t yet found out that Putin is a dictator. But for a renowned Ivy League Professor to elaborate a scenario according to which the UN would supervise a referendum where an occupied population would have the opportunity to vote whether they want ‘their’ aggressor to maintain its control over the already occupied territory….
Would that distinguished Professor be comfortable with a referendum – equally supervised by the UN, taking place in California? Which California had already been occupied by Mexico? For which referendum, the Californians were asked where they want to live? Whether Mexico should continue its occupation or should the Mexican army retreat behind the internationally recognized border?
No, I don’t think the Professor has been paid by Putin. Or ‘compensated’ in any other way by the ‘red Satan’. I just consider he was not paying real attention to what he was saying. He had just opened his mouth and verbalized what his mind was churning. The current ‘events’ have disturbed his pleasant existence to such a degree that he really needs this ‘fly in the ointment’ to ‘fly away’.
He is so ‘driven’ by his ‘need’ that he is no longer ‘patient’. He just can’t ‘stop talking’ for long enough to realize how fast Putin’s propaganda machine will make ‘good’ use of his ‘verbalizations’…
‘See, the good Professor confirms what our Beloved Leader has already done. It’s the Ukrainians who are not reasonable! They should first change their leadership then come back into Mother Russia’s arms.’
When are we going to understand?
Don’t tell others what to do unless you are prepared to ‘take advice’ yourself… And, for your own good, don’t trade your future freedom for your present comfort!
– If ‘no government’, then who would pay for the army we need to defend ourselves?
Ooops… you’ve just answered the ‘why does Russia ‘encourage’ the trolls who push ludicrous libertarian ideas’ question. Which trolls attempt to achieve two things at once. Weaken the concept of free government and give libertarian-ism a bad rep. Transforming libertarian-ism into yet another form of extremism.
Let’s get serious and try to find an answer to ‘why, and how much of it, do we need government?’
The boring one would be: ‘Whenever one government falls, another one takes over. The interregnum is always bad so… let’s get used to it’.
‘Getting used to it’ works only for very short expanses of time. Left on its own, all ‘government’ becomes sloppy. So sloppy that it soon becomes such a burden that even the most ‘used to it’ lose their patience. Government, all of them, need to be kept on a tight leash. Otherwise it will soon cease to perform as intended.
– But if you have to keep it on a tight leash, why bother with any in the first place? Can’t we do without such a bothersome pet? What’s the point of the whole thing, anyway?
Instinctively, we’re against ‘government’ for two reasons. It costs us a lot and it used to represent the interests of the ruler.
Until 10 000 or so years ago, we didn’t need ‘government’. People were living more or less like the modern day Sun People still do. In the Kalahari desert… small bands roam the place, living of the land. The bands are small – so that they might find sustenance, they don’t have any ‘private’ property to protect, hence they don’t need government. Neither did our ancestors.
As soon as people ‘invented’ agriculture – raising ‘tame’ animals at first and working the land soon after, things had changed dramatically. The advent of agriculture brought two things. An increased productivity and private property. Soil has not been born equal. Both pastures and arable land can be good, passable or bad. People wish to have the best. Those who already have it are willing to defend it and those who don’t are willing to steal it. Increased productivity means that those who produce are able to hire people to protect their ‘means of production’. Their property. As a consequence of fighting for it, some people accumulate more and more of it. More and more ‘means of productions’ – property, means an ever increasing need for ‘management’ and an ever increasing need for ‘protection’. Soon you have a very ‘wealthy’ owner – the lord of the place, call it what you like or use the name given to him by his subjects, the people who perform the day to day management of the ‘whole-sale property’ and those who protect it from ‘marauders’. Both the ‘managers’ – read ‘government’, and the ‘protectors’ – read ‘army’, used to be under the direct supervision of the local lord. For a while – for as long as the lord kept everything in balance, everybody was happy. The ‘peasants’ were happy because thy were safe, the ‘managers’ were happy because the wise lord used to appreciate their work and ‘compensated’ them accordingly, the ‘protectors’ were happy because they were well fed and taken care of. According to this article, the great Egyptian had been built by willing people, not by slaves. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html But soon enough, the lord had become estranged from his people. Government had become an instrument used to extract more and more wealth from the peasants while the army was used to protect the government against the people and, whenever possible, to increase the property of the ruling lord by stealing some from the neighboring ‘lords’. The ’empire’ was born.
But this development could take place only in certain circumstances. Where those below the ruling lord had nothing more to do than to obey. Where the best subject was the disciplined one. Where autonomous thinking and imagination were frown upon by the ruler. Where one mind was enough. Whenever the ‘environment’ mandated the individuals to remain relatively autonomous, proto-democratic forms of self government had been experimented. From the nomadic pastoralists of the Central Asia to the sailing communities in Ancient Greece and Medieval Scandinavia. Those driving herds or sailing ships need to be a lot more independent-minded that those who just tile the earth. No offense intended here! Simple observation will notice that where the geography of the place had allowed it, somebody had ‘built’ an empire. The Nile Valley, the Middle East, the Russian plain, China, Mexico… Where ever the geography of the place was fragmented enough by sail-able sea, proto-democratic forms of self-management had been developed. The sailing Ancient Athens versus the land-locked Sparta, Medieval Scandinavia versus Medieval France…
Fast forward to present day. When we have two forms of government. The more or less democratic ones. Those under whose ‘guidance’ discussions like the present one can happen. And the more or less authoritarian ones. Which actively discourage autonomous thinking.
Mind you, there are no ‘perfect’ governments. There’s no perfectly democratic arrangement anywhere on Earth. Because we are imperfect human beings. And there’s no ‘perfect’ authoritarian government. Because no government can survive for long if it attempts to centralize the decision power. The closer a government gets to being perfectly authoritarian, the smaller is the crisis needed to topple it. Unless it is supported from the out-side but that’s another topic.
So. It is fairly simple to understand how authoritarian governments fail. Too much ‘stiffness’ makes it impossible for authoritarian governments to evolve. To find solutions for whatever challenges pop up constantly.
But what can go wrong with the collective forms of self-rule? With the participative forms of social self management? Otherwise known as democracies? Lack of enough popular involvement. Due to a sense of apparent safety, initially. And to a feeling of apparent impotence, soon after. Lack of enough fore-sight. Those who should know better become distracted, for whatever reasons. Too much opportunism. More and more of the ‘insiders’ use ‘the power of the government’ to fulfill their own, private, goals instead of making sure that ‘government’ works properly.
And what does that mean?
A government works properly when the community which self manages itself using that particular (form of democratic) government survives in the long run. When those momentarily working inside the government make things happen for the community at large. When people, both inside and outside the government, follow, in spirit, Kennedy’s words.
Am I being naive? Maybe… But wouldn’t it be a nice thing to have? A nice thing to chase, anyway?
And what better way to chase ‘it’ than voting for people who at least pretend to be honest? Who at least make the ‘right’ noises? Whom we can hold accountable whenever they break their promises? Instead of voting for those who promise barrels and barrels of ‘pork‘? https://grammarist.com/idiom/pork-barrel/
Ideological pork or hands-on pork, I don’t know which is worse…
– I thought we were talking about a glass ceiling, not a glass bottom…
You see, we have to deal here with the difference between depth and thickness.
A ‘coat of paint’ has a certain thickness – we know where it starts and where it ends, while a sea has a certain depth. We know it’s there, we know where it starts – at the surface of the water, but we’re never exactly sure where it ends. How deep it actually is!
Another way to put this would be to compare the depth of human consciousness with the thickness of the cerebral cortex. The depth of the reality we perceive using our brain and the thickness of the cerebral tissue where this perception takes place. The depth of the reality we, humans, have built during our history inside the relatively shallow portion of the Earth where we feel at home.
We use a small number of phonemes to communicate among ourselves. A relatively small number of words to convey hugely complicated concepts. Two digits, 0 and 1, to build artificial intelligence… inside a wafer thin ‘slab’ of doped silicon.
– OK, enough introduction. How about making in clear what you really meant? A glass ceiling or a glass bottom?
Whether it is a glass ceiling or a glass bottom is a matter of perspective. A matter of where you are when looking at it. Above or below. The only thing which really matters being the fact that you see it despite of it being made of glass. Despite it being transparent.
Transparent to our eyes but not to our conscious mind.
– But if it’s already transparent, why is it such a big thing to break through it? We already know what’s behind/above it…
Seeing is not the same thing as knowing… just as 0 and 1 scribbled on a computer chip is not enough to make an intelligent computer…
The guy in the blue T shirt is being questioned by the Ukrainian police about his activity on ‘social media’. You probably guessed already what kind of ‘activity’ we’re talking about…
Which brings back painful memories.
During my childhood, in communist Romania, you could get arrested for listening to Radio Free Europe. Or for speaking against the communist rule.
In present day Russia, you’ll soon enough be arrested if you use the word war in relation to what is going on in Ukraine.
In Ukraine itself, you can be arrested for publicly supporting Putin’s actions.
The worst thing being the fact that there still are people out there who consider Putin is right and the Ukrainians – those who do nothing but defend their country, should be ‘left alone’.
To be ‘left alone’ to what?!? To be bombed away by Putin? So that we may continue our ‘peaceful lives’?
Peaceful only until Putin – or someone equivalent, will ‘change his mind’?
The guy above hasn’t figured out yet, in spite of the bombs falling over his head, that there’s no such thing as ‘peaceful life’ under dictatorship! Any kind of dictatorship… Nor have any of those who continue to defend Putin’s actions!
Or use their ‘freedom of speech’ in an attempt to sow doubt about the matter.
Or, otherwise put, Musk – who in 2008 was left of center, currently finds himself in a moderate conservative position because the woke progressives have displaced the center. To the left of where Musk was in 2008. And where he still is…
This might have not been uttered by Churchill but nevertheless rises some questions…
The fact that too many self styled liberals hold on to their ill begotten wealth while distributing a lot of quilt doesn’t obliterate the fact that very few of the ‘self believed’ conservatives share much of their wealth… while seldom admitting any responsibility for what had happened in the past. And continues to this day, in very insidious ways.
As for any attempt at a radical transformation of both economy and society – as in making them actually free for all us – white, black and all the other hues… forget it.
NB. All of us will eventually lose. Everything. Things are becoming too lopsided.
What does ‘worst’ mean in this circumstances? Until now, I was under the impression that ‘critics’ were good. That in a democratic setting, the critics are those who pull at our sleeves when we go astray. That the critics are those who bring us back to the straight and narrow. How can ‘critics’ become ‘bad’? Let alone “worst”…
As many of you already know, I grew up under a communist regime. In Ceausescu’s Romania. That was were I learned to decipher messages transmitted using the ‘wooden language’. Or, in Orwell’s parlance, “newspeak”…
Here’s what I make of Elon Musk’s words:
‘From now on, the “digital town square where matters vital to the future of mankind are debated” is mine. Mine to make what I see fit of it. To “make better” under my own terms. And if you don’t like it, keep ‘barking’. There’s nothing you can do to me. I’m going to make Twitter ‘private’. A.k.a. free from any ‘market interference’. Furthermore, your ‘barking’ will only increase the traffic. Hence the money I’ll be making on the back of your ‘free speech’.’
Twenty four years ago, in 1998, I spent a fortnight visiting Tunisia. I still remember the discussions I had with my wife. In our native Romania, we – the country, not the two of us – already had a couple of malls – which were quite new for us. Each time that we entered a Tunisian suk – also known as a bazaar, we felt like strolling through a mall.
In the Middle Ages, a suk was the property of the local sheik. Even if each ‘stall’ was operated as an individual business, the whole thing was run at the whim of the local ruler. According to the laws of the land, but still at the mercy of the landlord.
Each mall, the building, is owned by a company. And, the business, operated by another. Usually by a chain. Hence the ‘freedom’ of the individual businesses ‘housed’ by each mall is ‘defined’ by the rules put in place by the owners and the operators. Under the laws and by laws valid for the physical location of the building but still at the ‘mercy’ of those who own/operate the mall.
From now on, the “digital town square where matters vital to the future of the mankind” are ‘freely debated’ by us will be owned and operated by yet another one of Elon Musk’s enterprises. Who, for now at least, promises to welcome his “worst” critics, whatever that might mean.
And an after thought. A way shorter translation of Musk’s words might be: ‘Freedom of speech means being able to say ‘those who criticize me are bad people”. With the corollary that some are worse than others…
It was shared on a FB-wall and somebody had commented that “Institutionally they are not your friends.”
My ‘jerked’ comment was:
“Institutionally, cops should be your ‘last resort’ friends.
The fact that too many of them are not, and the fact that too many of us consider them, as a category, to be unfriendly, is proof of how dysfunctional our society has become.
Cops used to be ‘unfriendly’ when I grew up. In communist Romania. When the cops were used, by the communist state, to preserve their power. The communist power over the entire society.
In the free countries of today, the cops are the sole barrier separating our persona and private property from the hands of the criminals.
Without their presence…
Or, putting it the other way around, we have but the cops we deserve. Train and motivate them properly and you’ll have good cops!”
At a second glance, I had an inkling. Is it possible for the whole thing to be nothing more than a ‘marketing campaign’? Organized by the only people interested in increasing litigation?
Interested in altering the relative stability of our political establishment?
The police, by properly performing their duties – the world over, not only in the communist countries, contribute to the political stability of those respective countries. For the police to properly perform their duties, there must to exist a proper trust between the general population and the police itself. The population must see the police as their friends of last resort while the police must see the general public as both their employer and their responsibility. The population must be open in their relationship with the police while the police must treat respectfully every individual, including the suspects and the convicts.
In the communist regime I grew up, the police couldn’t fulfill its duties. Exactly between there was a ‘trust’ barrier between the general public and the police. Between the oppressed and the armed hand of the oppressor. The communist regime I grew up under, in Romania, had eventually collapsed. Exactly because of the malignant mistrust between the general public – The People, and the government. The police being nothing but a portion of the government itself.
Who is interested in the collapse of the democratic regimes? Who is mostly interested in wedging apart the government from The People?
No, Putin’s henchmen executing a nuclear attack isn’t the worst case scenario.
This is.
People around the world asking themselves ‘how is it possible for an army belonging to a civilized country – one currently holding the right to veto any UN Security Council decision, might behave in such a horrible manner’?!? How is it possible for a civilized people, the Russian people, to allow something like this to happen?
After the Cold War had been lost by the Soviet Union, the world over was under the impression that the liberal-democratic and capitalist model had ‘won’. That nobody could any longer advocate for an alternative. Nine years later, Russia was on the verge of collapse. After following – ineptly, the capitalist mantra – greed is good, the Russian people was almost dying of hunger. That’s how the Russians had fallen under Putin’s spell. He had turned around the Russian economy and earned the gratitude of the ordinary Russian people.
But he had done nothing but reigning in Yeltsin’s oligarchs… and got filthy rich in the process!
Yes, but the ordinary Russians had enjoyed, for some 15 years, a life they had never thought possible. A life of relative abundance. At a relatively low cost. At a cost they were already accustomed with.
The Russian people has been been accustomed, since always, to keep its mouth shut. That’s so deeply ingrained into their minds that most of them never even dream of speaking up….
OK, OK… but what is the link between your ‘worst case scenario’ and the Russian people being unable to ‘speak up’?!?
Putin is able to do what he is currently doing because nobody is challenging his decisions. Nobody inside Russia…
Because nobody inside Russia is challenging his decisions – and a ‘handful’ of ‘dimwits’ actually executes those decisions, the rest of the world is under the impression that the Russian people is OK with what’s going on in Ukraine.
And who are you to tell us that ‘regular Ivan’ would challenge Putin’s decisions if he had any opportunity?!?
I didn’t say that! If you are under that impression, I’m afraid I haven’t made my point yet.
You see, what we really need to do is to ‘fold’ the Russian people into our ‘Weltanschauung’. To welcome them into our social and cultural space.
The current war will end. One way or another. Putin will die. Sooner or later. But until the Russian people will learn that with us is far better that against us… we – all of us, will live on a ‘tight-rope’.
My impression, watching the horrors committed by the Russian army, is that those horrors have been ordered by Putin for one reason. And one reason only.
To convince us, the rest of the world, that the Russian people is nothing but a bunch of savages. That they deserve no compassion.
That their leader – Putin, must be offered an easy way out – at the expense of the Ukrainians, and that the Russian people must be left to rot at his disposal. That the Russian people deserves nothing. Nothing but to be left at the mercy of their ruthless and mind-twisting sheep-master.
That is the worst case scenario. Us accepting that another people, any people, is worthless.
Putin’s followers – Le Pen and Orban being but the most obvious examples, are eagerly waiting for that to happen.
nicichiarasa 