Assessing democracies weakest link - Independence day 2015

Discussion in 'Help From Above' started by elagache, Jul 4, 2015.

  1. pbr400

    pbr400 68GS400

    What bothers me is that it all comes down to the voters and those voters now choose based on things like what candidate's party is driving the bus that took them to the polls or who bought the best and most ads or how bad was the mud slung by the opponent. So few are informed; even fewer have studied any history, and rarer still are the educated free thinkers. But their votes count the same as everyone else's.
    Patrick
     
  2. Junkman

    Junkman Well-Known Member

    If we could force our original pre 1861 De Jure Congress to reconvene , that would be a fantastic start. This De Facto government we have been stuck with since the Civil War isn't working out for us citizens. It's an incorporated business. So it will look out for corporate entities / banks as it has for over 100 years.
     
  3. elagache

    elagache Platinum Level Contributor

    When what you "believe" is more than you can "understand" (Re: Democracies link)

    Dear Fred, Lee, James, Jerry, bw1339, Erik, Greg, Jim, John, Marc, Brian, and V-8 Buick thoughtful patriots,

    Hmm, I can never imagine how people will respond to these posting . . . . Serves me right I suppose . . . [​IMG]

    It seems to me though that there is something of a common thread that touches on the deeper issue I was trying motivate.

    Bear with me for a moment, but it does appear to me that the western world is moving in a "leftist" direction - a situation where government increasingly is asked to control the affairs of people.

    It is the reason for this shift that deserves some careful reflection. Until recently, the world view of the west was essentially religious. Religious views are comforting, much more comforting than the cold harsh reality that science gives us today. Science leaves us with the unexplained power humans have to modify our world, but otherwise we live in a cold and heartless environment of physical and biological phenomena. The existence of the individual or even a whole species ultimately has no meaning or worth. Before we had a deity taking care of us. The new world view is extremely complex and without any empathy. Forces we do not understand could cause the extinction of the human race at any time. You may have seen that scientists are now predicting this event.

    The dominant intellectual view is that our post religious world is somehow better than the previous world. We are free to worship only if we derive satisfaction from it. We are able to understand the world from many human perspectives, not simply the western perspective that previously dominated thought. This new world gives many freedoms, but it is liberation or chaos?

    For the average person, we cannot understand the physics behind the operation of the atmosphere. We cannot assess the safety issues associated in cars that drive themselves. We cannot understand the strategies necessary to eradicate an epidemic like Ebola. We have little choice but to rely upon experts and hope that they indeed know what they are doing and aren't making any mistakes. When technology fails us (like our computers stop working) we have few resources and often blame ourselves instead of the technologists. Yet as the software industry demonstrates, mistakes do happen and the public can be made utterly miserable by technology that should have been done well, but wasn't. What happens when that technology doesn't simply make us miserable, but kills us?

    Until recently, we didn't need "big government." We had a "big God" and that was our salvation. The transformation of our intellectual world view has altered even the faithful. For those without faith, where can they turn for comfort?

    I'll admit it is a conjecture, but I do believe we are seeing voters asking the government to do more, because they have nothing else to turn to. There are sociological factors that also drive this tendency such as the increasing instability of human relationships and the number of broken families. Yet even this might be fed by our new world view which lacks the hopefulness of earlier religious foundations. It is one thing to be optimistic because you are special in a religious sense. It is quite another to try to be optimistic because human cleverness has gotten us this far. Science offers us absolutely no guarantee that our cleverness can get us past the next mishap that befalls the human race.

    Edouard
     
  4. Junkman

    Junkman Well-Known Member

    This breaks it down fairly accurately........most citizens aren't even aware of this and probably would find it hard to believe.

    http://www.usavsus.info/
     
  5. Mister T

    Mister T Just truckin' around

    Re: When what you "believe" is more than you can "understand" (Re: Democracies link)

    I have highlighted the pertinent ares which I will comment about.

    Firstly, as a highly intelligent individual, I have very little faith in any form of religious beliefs.

    Secondly, I have far more faith in true science that is not driven by money or greed. Whenever the topic of increasing reliance on technology or human extinction comes up, I always think of an episode of "Star Trek, Next Generation" from 1988 entitled "The Arsenal of Freedom". In it, the Enterprise is sent to the planet Minos to investigate the disappearance of a starship. Upon arriving they discover evidence of a race of people which were so advanced, they created defensive machinery which ultimately destroyed them. These machines were so advanced as to have the ability to learn and adapt to changing situations.

    That is what scares the hell out of me. Are we as a species becoming so advanced as to eventually write our own epitaph? Is technology and our increasing reliance on it, creating a society of deadbeats who no longer want to engage in hard manual labor? What would happen if all the technology suddenly stopped working for an extended period of time?? This is a very real possibility, should there be a large enough gamma ray burst to hit earth.

    Think about that for a while as you ponder how and why so many illegals are "allowed" to work at those hard and dirty jobs.

    We are also becoming a society of narcissists only caring about ourselves, and accumulating personal goods as cheaply as possible.

    I'll stop here. :laugh: :laugh:
     
  6. SteeveeDee

    SteeveeDee Orange Acres

    This thread got slid in here under the pretext of "Assessing democracies (sic) weakest link- Independence Day 2015". It has religio-philosophical underpinnings of a " 'big God and that was our salvation'" in it. It is a thread pushing religion and only one religion, and should be closed, or at least moved to the "Help From Above" forum, where it should fit right in. That "weak link" of independence would be replaced by that "big god", and no independence, or what? On second thought, this post doesn't belong on this site AT ALL.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2015
  7. John Codman

    John Codman Platinum Level Contributor

    To Tom, Carl Sagan was very much the scientist, but his biggest fear was that Humans would blow themselves up before they adapted to the scientific realities of the world. I will leave it that I share his concern.
     
  8. schlepcar

    schlepcar Gold Level Contributor


    A very valid point and often misunderstood....



    There has NEVER been a long lasting democracy. When townships and states bankrupt themselves as the Feds we approach what historians call apathy. The masses simply vote for the freebies until we reach the dictator status again. With all our technology and insight, the leaders simply repeat history all over again. A close look at WW I shows the Ottaman Empire lasting hundreds of years with their Muslim culture surrounding the Mediteranean Sea. There numbers were staggering by "today's" population. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I think if we took a vote by tax paying,landowning citizens,rather than freeloaders, we would all get a dose of relief. Of course,that will not happen because.......3,2,1.....This is where I stay clean and mention no names.
     
  9. Jim Weise

    Jim Weise EFI/DIS 482

    It just turned that direction this morning, so I agree, and moved it to the appropriate forum.

    Feel free to ignore it now.. :)

    JW
     
  10. Jim Weise

    Jim Weise EFI/DIS 482

    Funny how two individuals can view the same thing, yet have completely different takes on it.

    Like Tom, I look around, and it becomes immediately obvious to me that what I am seeing, is not the result of an accident. But intelligent design..

    I can understand the feelings of hopelessness that haunt those who rely on Science to explain the Universe to them.

    But that's a completely different topic, now isn't it.

    On topic, I believe that the lack of faith is one of the underpinnings that is now missing in society, and the corrosion of what we could call a 'moral compass' is part and parcel to the apathy shown by younger voters.

    Put simply.. "If I can get my IPhone 7, why would I care about who is in office? ..think how good my instagrams will look in 4GLTXVYG" (or whatever the next "innovation" is)

    JW
     
  11. Mister T

    Mister T Just truckin' around

    :gp: :gp:

    John, I always liked Carl Sagan, even if I didn't always understand what he said at the time. It was a sad day when he suddenly passed away at such a young age.

    (Treading carefully here. :pp)

    Having seen the results of yesterdays Greek referendum vote, it seems to validate my most recent comments about a society of narcissists. Allow your government to get into serious, major financial difficulties by molly coddling its voters with all sorts of social benefits, then claim hardship while failing to address the core problem, which is of course, those same social benefits.

    Then have the audacity to beg for help from others....Sound familiar?? Believing in some type of "higher power" or "god" to help you out simply will not work. Never has, never will.
     
  12. Smokey15

    Smokey15 So old that I use AARP bolts.

    My wife and I seldom attend church and are non-denominational. We do, however, believe in God as our creator. That said, we also believe God helps those, who wish to improve, who help themselves get there. We, as humans, create the environment in which we dwell. We can either strive to change it, for the best it can be; or we can relocate to an environment that better suites our tastes. To stay in an environment and only complain, yet do nothing to better it, is complacency. If that's the choice you make, you have no room to complain. Look at the poor voter turnout to see where all too many of the citizens of our country stand. Disgusting. We get those in office who put forth the same lackluster performance as we do at the polls.
     
  13. schlepcar

    schlepcar Gold Level Contributor

    The "higher" power ie...God,was exactly meant to help "you" out. The masses were not supposed to need help because they were all individuals who sought their inner higher power to collectively form townships and communities. Problems are always prevalent and were solved at the local level with the input of a moral,spiritual,and intelligent take on what one's actions may inflict on the local group as a whole. Rather or not one "believed" could be easily hidden or avoided as a question altogether. It would be plainly obvious who was working with Godly intentions or their own. I fail to see why the mention or belief in Jesus is so offensive to some. The freedom to believe or not believe is one of the cornerstones of our REPUBLIC......and to the republic,one nation,under God...is what we were required to pledge our allegiance to in kindergarten and every township meeting in MY town. If people are so against this,they can go to their local township meetings and complain to everyone in person. That way, your neighbors will know that you are a non-believer and you can single yoursel(or your group) out and get the recognition that you so much deserve. I am sure after living in one of the longest so-called democracies, you would be welcome in certain areas. The good news is that the rest of us could avoid those areas like the plague. If it is one's agenda to dismiss God from their life,that is their choice. If it is one's agenda to obliterate Jesus from others,they are far more damaging than any name we have seen yet. To my knowledge, and a lot of scientists....the proof or disproof of God will never be available to our feeble minds. The lack of knowledge is not necessarily ignorance, but abundance of knowledge in one's own mind can prove disastrous.
     
  14. elagache

    elagache Platinum Level Contributor

    Living in post-religous world? (Re: Assessing democracies weakest link)

    Dear Lee, Tom, John, Jim, and V-8 Buick thoughtful people,

    Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that we should be religious. The point was precisely the opposite. Our modern world basically undermines religious thought. Even the faithful have a constant drag that science seems to do so much of a better job explaining things and giving us the technology we want.

    My point is that science doesn't provide the same sort of hopefulness. In the past, our existence was relgiously guaranteed. Today we exist basically because we were lucky enough to become intelligent and clever enough to survive anything thrown at us. That's my main point. How much longer can we be this lucky?


    This is precisely the fear that James Burke raises in his Connections series. The first episode follows a blackout in 1965 that put most of the northeast of the United States in the dark for many hours. We have since has blackouts of nearly the same magnitude. The water crisis in California right now isn't simply due to a drought, planners allowed the water supply to decrease per capita after the 1976-77 drought. Humans have an amazing capacity to reason, but are we in fact using it to give the human race the best possible hope for survival?

    I think we all know the answer is - no. So please don't accuse me of being religious, I'm asking the very scary opposite question - how do we exist given that we basically have decided to "go it alone?"

    Edouard
     
  15. schlepcar

    schlepcar Gold Level Contributor

    Re: Living in post-religous world? (Re: Assessing democracies weakest link)


    I guess I would not accuse anyone of being religious because it would be nothing more than a term of ambiguity. I think a good argument looks at all sides of the story,and you have created some very good points about what will,should,or might happen. I just wanted to reflect on what used to work when constructing a society not based on monopolies or other corporate greed. The sloth,vanity,and other areas that have led up to the apathetic vote have been created by our generation. I just left the mall,and a kid dropped some change from his baggy $75 jeans. He laughed and said"free money to whoever wants it"....of course,I picked it up and counted my new found .35 cents. There is something wrong there somewhere.We have given no credit for a job well done,or a long term hurdle in our present situation,so laziness and jealousy of those who accomplish is rampant.
    Religious has no meaning thanks to some overpaid Hollywood types and other tax dodgers. We could call this Buick board a religion with some of the precedent that has taken place in the past several years. Instead of praying for our leaders,we will pray for A LEADER. Without God and the strength of every moral man out there,people will anxiously await their next dictator. People forget that we have always had scientists,atheists,religion, and the list goes on. If Carl Sagan was so advanced,why did he not listen to his own mouth? "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Apparently that did not apply to a creator,but only certain things that his mind was in conjunction with.
    Your post posed other more viable questions not related to Sagan,but my point is very simple. We are not,and never have been in control. We seemed to have outsmarted our common sense in terms of why we are here.
     
  16. Smokey15

    Smokey15 So old that I use AARP bolts.

    The situation we are in, along with the ongoing sloth and apathy, have nothing to do with religion or the lack of. It all has to do with the decline of our moral compass and the playing to the lowest common denominator of humans who milk our system; and our accepting of it rather than taking a stand against it.
     
  17. DeeVeeEight

    DeeVeeEight Well-Known Member


    It's too bad that there are so many miles between us. I am sure that we would be the best of friends - we often think along the same lines.
     
  18. Smokey15

    Smokey15 So old that I use AARP bolts.

    Miles can't stop us from being friends, my friend. :beer I had the pleasure of meeting some of our members at Martin. Maybe someday we'll meet up as well.
     
  19. Floydsbuick

    Floydsbuick Well-Known Member

    Best definition of religion I've seen is "a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance". Everyone has a religion. I place my hope in Christ. What..... This world is a mess and some of you think that means there is no true and living God? Followers of Christ know that this is a temporary dwelling place. And its ruled by sin. Of course things are a mess!
     
  20. schlepcar

    schlepcar Gold Level Contributor

    I have to agree.....we have a lot of churches that seem to have nothing to do with God. Funny your name is Dan...Dan
     

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