Society & Politics - Thought Overflow... (Page 2)

America's grand strategy

wrote this in response to a NYT op-ed calling for a grand strategy in American foreign policy:

Our grand strategy should be driven by our core principles: liberty and justice for all - not only for those who happen to live in America. If we can achieve that, the world will indeed be much safer, and more prosperous. Madison understood tyrants - the bill of rights is needed everywhere. Freedom of speech provides a corrective mechanism against corruption. Our grand strategy should be to support these rights universally. Whether that means we should act as a policeman, is a matter of tactics.

It seems so obvious to me, I don't know why the democratic candidates and others are not saying this. Elizabeth Warren comes the closest, I think.

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"Here's how I know I've Made it in America"

"I've made it not because I assimilated, or because I have a little bit of money, or because my voice be heard. I've made it because I can disagree with and question what America is really all about. I've made it because I can demand more from my country."

-- Julissa Arce, My American Dream, p 285

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good intentions

...not combined with good patterns/best practices not only pave the way to hell, the road is a bit bumpy.

in a hospital, the nurses not only desire not to kill patients, they check 3 times that the actions they take are correct

similarly best practices are important, esp when combined with power. Some of the greatest harm right now is coming from excessively powerful leaders who at one point had good intentions.

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when is an argument logical? and why that requires an intimacy

Not in the sense of correct or incorrect conclusions, but in the sense of when is an argument or discussion between two people actually a logical argument? Only if it takes place in a single axiomatic space. (which is rarely the case!) In order to actually have a logical argument, both people have to agree on a single space, or set of initial assumptions. Given the real world of complex inner spaces, this probably means that one person must enter the other's space to explore it and look for inconsistencies and bring up real world data to explain. Which is why this sort of real argument is necessarily very intimate.

But the type that often occurs, where each person is talking from within their own space, is both illogical and frustrating.

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its not so much that the perfect is the enemy of the good, its that the ideal is the enemy of the real

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Ayn Rand and Communist Propaganda

Had a really interesting conversation with some long time Russian friends of mine. My friend Inna told me that because of all the discussions about it she decided to read Ayn Rand's book; she said it was practically unreadable, and really reminded her of communist propaganda pieces.

The thing that both have in common, also with current propaganda about 'great russia', is ways to make people who feel low or put down feel better about themselves by feeling like their country or system is somehow great and better than others. So its sort of a cheap way of making people feel good about themselves, but manipulating them in the process.

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What I like best about the Federalist Papers

In the intro, Hamilton wrote

"It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."

And, he expected Americans, common man in the street, to read it! Its ok to communicate complex ideas to each other, really it is...

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The lighter side of activism...

So I signed a petition today at dailyKos, asking congress to prevent Trump from having the authority to start a nuclear war. And I thought, well, petitions aren't very effective and I don't know if this will do any good. But at least, if there is a nuclear war and we are all gonna die, at least I know I signed a petition....

hm.

I did get a bunch of people at the peace fair today to agree to make phone calls against that SB1142 bill. Now back to aligning voter files to enable our communities product. Would it have made any difference if I just went hiking? But then there was Anna Maria with the families of those killed by the border patrol. I think I'm glad I went. Fighting back is a funny thing.

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"I actually sweat the specifics because they matter. "

I love this quote - this is one of my core values and love hearing Hilary say it. She may be personally ambitious - so shoot her - but I believe that she works hard and cares about stuff, including women and kids. She meets with a lot of people in scary situations personally, and I bet that really does affect her.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/21/1541020/-Trump-s-total-policy-vacuousness-gives-Hillary-space-to-connect-with-average-Americans

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Lincoln on pragmatic idealism

I really like these quotes from his debate with Douglass: "This they said and this they meant (the equality of those certain unalienable rights). They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated....the assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use." -- quoted in Stephen Prothero's The American Bible p.80

I think this is a key point, that declaring what is right or just describing an idea has power even though the writer doesn't have the ability to enforce or implement it, and may not in

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