An open Letter To Gary Johnson

Dear Senator Johnson, my name is Robert and I am from the Toronto area up here in Ontario Canada.
If I held American citizenship, I would be casting my vote for you this November.
This open letter is meant to communicate something that I and perhaps many other people think is very important and could serve to make a better America which is more fair, free, and beneficial for her people.

The reason I have selected you instead of one of the other two electoral nominees is because in the interviews I've seen with you, it seems that you are the only person running in this election who shows fair mindedness and consideration for the perspectives of others.   Even though I'm not a Libertarian (I guess I could be described as a centrist Liberal) I do support many of your ideas about cultural freedom and personal responsibility as the best way for the people to control a country.

Although i agree with you on these points, there is something really important I want to talk to you about and I hope you will give it serious consideration.

Medicine is unavailable to many Americans in dire need of medical care and it is potentially the largest pandemic of inequality in American society today.
I know that for the most part Conservative Americans don't like the idea of a universal health care system, but I think they should.   When considering the fact of average American salaries, we can see that there are many states where households make less than $50,000 per annum.  Can you imagine what happens to one of these households when a child contracts Lukemia or a father needs urgent heart surgery?
People loose houses and livelihoods and are forced to give up everything as a trade off to keep their family alive.
This stands in stark disproportion to well of Americans who can afford to rate medical care.    When considering the health of a country, is it really fair to say that those who have more deserve access to medicine while those who have less do not?
As a Canadian, I have access to a reasonably good medical system.  It isn't perfect, but I know that if any of my family members or I get sick, we have a safety net to fall back on and we can get the care we need, regardless of our yearly income.
Our neighbours down South can't say the same, but I wish they could.

I agree with many of your policies, for instance, I agree with bringing home the troops and I agree with ending the war on drugs.
Can you imagine what you could do with the money saved from not sending armies to fight in unfair wars and by freeing people from prison because they chose to ingest a substance that alters their mind?
Can you imagine using this revenue to help the neediest of Americans get the care which they so urgently need? Can you imagine giving assistance to war vets who are lost in post war trauma and PTSD?

Mr.Trump talks about making America great again, but what would really make America great would be if all Americans enjoyed some of the degree of protection that are afforded to the rich.    The Libertarian ethic of hard work and independence must also recognize that riches don't always equate to merit and that poverty doesn't always equate to laziness.

I think Americans deserve medicine they can afford and I think they deserve to partake in all of the things that make America the best country in the world, not just for some, but for all.

Again, I'm sending this letter to you because of the three popular candidates, you are the only one I have found to be fair minded and actually concerned with the American people.  I wish you every success, but on your way up, please remember all the people who will help you get there and that they have needs that aren't being filled by the current system.

Thank you very much for your time in reading this,
sincerely,

A friend from up North.

Beyond Empiricism: Ethical Considerations in Political Advocacy.

Beyond Empiricism:

Ethical Considerations in Political Advocacy.

“52% of British Muslims believe that Homosexuality should be Illegal!”

Statements like this and other similarly shocking information appear from the depths of the media, bringing up feelings of apprehension, mistrust and stirring radical nationalist sentiments, but are they factually accurate?

The fact of the matter is that the poll from which this statistic was derived was carried out on a total of 1081 British Muslims, from predominantly lower income areas which had Islamic populations around 20%. The study has been called into question by many parties and at best is a very partial representation of the views of the 2,706,066 Muslims living in the UK (2011 Data) and should be treated as such.

Although the data set might be a factual representation of the targeted group within the British Muslim population, it is no guarantee of what overall opinions may be in the larger Muslim community of the United Kingdom. This isn't to say that Britons should not be weary of such high rates of hatred toward gays among Muslim religious followers, but rather that this information should be treated with a certain degree of scepticism and that it is important to treat such studies as part of a growing body of information about the socio-political climate of England, rather than as an absolute indication of the tendencies of English people who happen to be of the Muslim faith.

Comparing this against American opinions from the Southern Central States, we find that in a 2015 Gallop poll, there is a 54% opposition to gay marriage, does this give us reason to become frightened or react in a nationalistic fashion against these obviously hateful people?

Having said that, it is important to recognize that the British and American data represent two totally different sets of information, but we can use it as a fair indicator that there are in fact many places in the western world with few Muslims where anti homosexual views are widely held.

All of this particular information will set the tone of the rest of my article here.

If we are truly dedicated to fairness, we must not use cherry picked statistics in order to favour our personal world views. Regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum, it is hugely important to the good of society to attempt to portray facts and statistics in as honest a way as possible.

I cannot begin to enumerate the amount of times that I have seen bloggers and media people who I deeply respect talk about extremely small samples of data as if they were representative of entire demographic groups.

The reason why I picked specifically on the issue of misrepresentation of issues pertaining to Islam, rather than some of the well known tropes of the Left such as the wage gap and Racial Fragility is because I think that sceptics need to look honestly at themselves and their opinions in order to attempt to genuinely make truth of information presented to us, rather than simply following the crowd and abandoning our logical faculties when we see a topic which seems to confirm our already existing world view.

If we can make genuine appraisal of facts rather than jumping to ideological conclusions, it may be possible that this budding movement might turn into something beyond the typical echo chambers of the left and the right.

This article is in no way meant to add or detract credibility from any of the ongoing political arguments pertaining to culture, race, religion, or gender, but rather simply to state the stance of honest enquiry over partisan appraisal of scant information.

Because we know that it is possible to use data sets in such a way that they obscure larger social trends, and serve to potentially bias people toward a polarized view of the political world, we must develop a strong sense of ethical responsibility when interrogating and presenting facts in social media.

When a body of evidence is presented as part of a much larger and ongoing cultural dynamic, a degree of context may be obtained that can stop participants in the media from taking excessively biased or violent views toward people whose intentions they genuinely do not understand.

Again, I feel that this attitude should be applied equally to causes of the left and the right, and that it is every bit as unfair to characterize straight white men as members of a racist patriarchal system of cultural oppression as it is to denigrate all Muslims as homicidal anti gay maniacs. If it were the case that either were true, the nature of our relatively peaceful society would be dramatically different and it would be as clear as night and day to all participants.

The moral of this post is: Stay sceptical, keep researching and thinking, and don't jump overboard unless you are sure the ship is sinking.


Sources:
 http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/11/europe/britain-muslims-survey/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States

Multi-directional responsibility in conflict arbitration

Let us assume for a moment that you are a parent with twin children of the same gender and same physical make up.  You also neither prefer one child or the other, and you even sometimes have trouble clearly telling them apart.
Today, one child comes to you claiming the other has beaten her, you call the other child over and that child also claims having been beaten similarly by her sibling, but neither child have any outward signs of physical trauma.
Starting from this point, how would you rationally inquire as two which child was responsible for this conflict?

Before answering this question, let us consider a similar but slightly different situation.   Instead of having identical twins, you have a younger and older child, still of the same gender.   The younger child is frequently the victim of the older child's harassment and it is not unusual for the older child to strike out violently at the younger in times of anger.   Would this conflict be easier to arbitrate?
What if it were the case that the younger child in order to gain your attention, was in the habit of frequently bating the older child and then running to you when it was injured?

In all of these hypothetical cases, we find that arbitrating conflict is not a simple task and requires some degree of sophistication and wisdom in order to maintain a sense of fairness. 
Out of each of these three potential cases, which is the most difficult to accurately judge?
A common answer would be the first, in that the first situation involves an extremely ambiguous sequence of events, and in effect, is simply the word of one child against the other.
In my estimation, while the first case is potentially more difficult to make a clear assessment of, the third case is more difficult a priori to make judgement over which child is more in the wrong.

If for instance, the set of identical twins are equally likely to have beaten the other and that there is no other evidence from which to rely, the only possible recourse is to either punish both of them or not punish either.
In the case of the children of different age, where one is obviously the aggressor and the other innocent, then again, it is easy to judge the aggressive child as being more guilty than the victimized child.
Finally, in the case that both children have a history of taunting each other (which really is very common in multi child families), then there is a complex problem of deciding how to punish.
Most sensible parents treat the inherent responsibility of the elder child as a way to simplify their deduction of who is more in the wrong.  In effect, the older child is expected already to know that they are not to hit the younger, while the younger is to some extent excused by their lack of experience.
Of course, this method has the merit of teaching the older child a sense of responsibility, but also teaches both children that it is possible to rig the system in favour of the younger child, who can use her weakness as a weapon against the elder in times of conflict.
In my estimation, in situations where it is clear that both the younger and older child were accomplices to the resulting violence, both children must be held to account.  It may be the case that the child who responded physically is given a more stern punishment than the child who did the taunting, because it is important to drive home the message to both children that physical violence is a socially unacceptable behaviour, but the taunting child must also not be seen to escape totally from censure.

This particular line of reasoning suggests to us that when arbitrating conflicts, we must be careful not to excessively privilege any party.   When there is substantial evidence of a more omni-directional grievance, we must act accordingly to censure the offending party, but in situations in which aggression is dual or multi-directional, we must make sure not to excessively pander to either party, regardless of their apparent weakness or strength.

This is a large principle and can be applied to many different sections of social interaction.  I will leave it to you to consider how this may be applied to your own thought and actions, or whether you agree or disagree with it in principle. 

Defining Words:

What did the word God mean before the European Enlightenment?

This question presents us with a rationale by which to begin to approach a most difficult of problems, how to tackle with the linguistic peculiarities of a society in transition.

Before we approach the meaning of God at the time before the enlightenment, we should first ask ourselves what God meant in the time after the enlightenment.

Taking as an example, Spinoza's atheistic God, which instead of being a separate entity who created humanity in his own image, is a universal animus which fills all things in existence, we find that a modernist God must by definition at least to some extent abandon the mythological God of medieval times. Of course Spinoza's radical redefinition of God is not a universally accepted concept in the Western discourse, but instead is now one of a great melange of ideas about the relationship between divinity and reality that simultaneously and paradoxically oppose and harmonize with one another.

The even newer post modern, and neo- hedonist approaches to God, or its non existence pose us with an even larger number of competing images of reality in which a modern empirically orientated atheist aesthetic freely mingles with post philosophy and multicultural views of the now truly unintelligible concept of a supernatural being which is the reason for our collective existence and who to some extent has a hand in our destiny.

Comparing this God, which seems beyond all rational description, we may now approach the God of the Old Testament, who seems also to take on many illusory and changing forms.

This God who told Moses to name him to others as “I am,” first shows himself in the creation of all things in Genesis. After the creation of a Man and a Woman and their subsequent betrayal of his trust in the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God appears in a physical form, walking through the garden, seemingly unaware of what has transpired between Adam, Eve, and the Snake. This God, who, like a stern father, discovers his child disobeying his command, seems surprised and saddened by the fall of his progeny from the grace and innocence of the garden.

This very physical God who asserts thereafter that “Now they know the meaning of good and evil, just as us,” seems also to address a plurality, but whether it is a plurality of already existing beings aligned with his knowledge, or the audience reading the holy book is never explained clearly.

Later in Exodus, God reveals himself in a burning bush to Moses, and Moses is so frightened that he covers his head not to look upon the face of God, again, this goes unexplained.

So what is the major meaning of this God who seemingly takes on many mystical and very temporal forms? In fact, this is the principle by which I wish to approach the modern discourse of political language in the west today.

Given the lack of availability of definition of God in Genesis, Exodus, and the other main books of the old testament, we find ourselves posed clearly with the fact that the God of the ancients was not defined by our modern scientific and reductive approach to understanding the world. In effect, this God must remain a mystery to anyone not able to enter into the mindset of the people who wrote and interpreted the Bible at that time in History.

In present times, we find ourselves at a linguistic crossroads of sorts, one which poses us with the problem of making clear and accurate definitions for social concepts which are radically changed from even the realities of twenty years ago.

We also find that our discourse becomes ever more divisive as we attempt to grapple with how to define the ever growing population of “The other” in our society. This other can not only be reduced to the massive and ongoing influx of immigrants from all corners of the globe, but also extends to the ideological other who already exists within the traditional framework of our society. We find now that with means of communication as vast and open as the digital information mine of the Internet, that it is possible to communicate with people at great geographical distance from us, almost at the speed of a regular conversation in situ. This ability links not only international communications, but also inter-regional communications within our own countries. Assuming that one lives in a large and ideologically diverse country such as the United States of America, it seems to become increasingly more disconcerting to find out the reality of what people who have hitherto seemed remote to us actually believe.

I should stress that this essay does not seek to define any sense of social morality or how we should communicate with each other, but rather point out the difficulty of maintaining open and fair communications with people who's opinions and experiences we do not understand.

This inter-regional communication seems in a sense, at least in America, to be more jolting than the prospect of communicating with people as far away as England, France, China, and Pakistan. In some way, the greatest strangers of the internet are the people who live the closest to us.

When we have a discussion with a man in Shanghai, unless of course we are already from that part of the world, we will naturally maintain some degree of recognition that his world view and our world view are very different. Naturally any communication between us will be filtered through our intrinsic understanding that we have fewer points of cultural commonality than we do with our neighbours.

Having said this, when we communicate with a fellow in Mississippi from our apartment in New York, we may find his world view to be utterly foreign and retrograde. This sense of ideological alienation seems almost more extreme because he also seems so local to us. I maintain that we would not sustain the same degree of psychological trauma even when arguing with a person of genuinely foreign origin.

The great convergence of ideological shock comes not simply from holding a different world view, but in my estimation is related to a completely different regional interpretation of the meanings of words.

For instance, all Americans understand the basic concept that Racism indicates the prejudice of one “Racial” group against another, but this is the point at which one idea radically splits into many competing narratives. It almost goes without question that the word Racist has negative connotations to people in all regions of America, and that although a very limited number of people will openly admit behind closed doors that they hold a Racist world view, very few people would like to be accused of it in public. However, we now find ourselves at the point of an ideological split, because this word is interpreted differently depending on ones' particular social background.

For the average working class American in Texas, Racism maintains its late twentieth century interpretation of being an animosity between the races, but to a Phd candidate in the Social Sciences in New Jersey, Racism takes on an altogether more nuanced meaning which deals with the many potential intricate power relationships between what are viewed as dominant and non dominant ethnic groups.

These two meanings seem almost at odds with each other, since the relatively simplistic dictionary definition of Racism, which simply holds racial prejudice as being related to disdain among individual racial demographics almost does not exist within the Post Colonialist narrative of Racism as something which only moves from the elite class down to the submissive class. It is understandable then that the traditionalist approach to defining Racist behaviour is utterly incompatible with the much more broad ranging and inclusive approach taken on by present day academia,

Racism is only one word in a greater social milloux of competing definitions to define the overall social opinions of a culture. Again, we do not seek to define in this essay which approach is better, but instead, simply to point out the incongruity of definition of the same word.

Taking the narrative definition of Racism back further into history, we see it applies as a type of Scientific exploration into the abilities of the races. Seen in the light of modern day science and humanities, most of us find this Racialism (the etymological predecessor to Racism) approach to be repugnant and without merit, and yet it is the root origin of this now very complex and culturally powerful concept.

Much in the way that Descartes sought to use an empiricist approach to provide foundation for the proof of a sentient God in protest of the secular ideologies of his day, the modern advocacy community attempts to use a throwback to semi-empricism to validate its redefinition of words in order to suit the needs of an ever changing sociopolitical environment in the west and the greater world.

Because all ethical considerations are based in some degree of rationality and truth, of course there is great merit in finding new ways to describe problems which have not gone away, merely under the steam of a modern, progressive social agenda. That is to say, the older definitions of political words have become meaningless to their modern application and as a result, must be redefined in order to suit the situation of the day.

In the light of maintaining an agenda which leads to the realization of universal equality of opportunity among all people, this redefinition of words seems acceptable and perhaps to be a needed change, but there is also potential for problems which can emerge from this rebranding of old concepts.

Possibly the biggest conflict to arise from redefinition is the degree of social disagreement that it causes.

Using again, the term God as an example, we find that there is virtually no cohesive agreement between religious groups as to what God actually is. It seems today that even within independent schools of the same religion, God often has a radically different meaning, be it the independent spiritual God of the Baptists, or the Spinozian all being God of the Universalist church, there is very little agreement on this ultimate of grand theories of creation.

The key to not being bogged down in all of this confused heterodoxy in the Christian world has been the De facto acceptance of other Christians as being of the same large group, although perhaps not being of the same ideology.

The world of American politics, which in every way is as polarized as the split between Shiite and Sunni Muslims after the death of the Prophet Mohamed seems to not respect this universal acceptance of differing opinions in the same benign light as does the Christian Community of its own flock.

Because each major side of the American political debate seeks to instill a sense of cultural hegemony upon if not the whole country, at least its own followers, the words used to describe similar events must by definition take on competing meanings.

In the Liberal world view (again, another word whose original meaning has changed dramatically over the past one hundred years), suggests that there is a complex and subtle system of social oppressions which occur as a result of alienation of identity. It at least partially views the solution to this alienation to be found within the creation of social safety nets which can be used to de-alienate Americans through universal access to a minimum standard of education, health care, and social wellfare of various kinds.

The Conservative world view in turn views alienation as arising from government interference in the lives of Americans and what it believes to be the gradual degradation of traditional regional values which are important to its voter base. In effect, these two competing opinions, one collective and one individualist (although it is our opinion that in fact they are pseudo-collectivist and pseudo-individualist), must define their cultural dispute according to a radicalized language of aggression.

Because it goes far beyond the scope of this essay to go into lengths about this dispute, perhaps it is a better avenue to simply attempt to define certain concepts that both groups use and explain how they stand in stark opposition to each other, thus validating the original statement that we live in a peculiar climate in which single words may take on multiple meanings depending upon by whom they are used.

Glossary of terms:

We do not seek here to access in any exact sense definitions of these words, but rather general readings as they apply to either side of the American political conversation. These definitions are in no way meant to be comprehensive, but rather just to illustrate the often completely different readings of the same concept. In fact, we do not even seek an accurate definition for democrat and republican, but instead use them as approximations of political ideas on the left and right wings, which in reality are significantly more varied and diverse than this simple list could possible address.

Constitution:

Democrat: The original document from which American political ethos is derived. A Document declaring universal freedom to all Americans. Protection of this right by the American government.

Republican: The original document from which American political ethos is derived. A document declaring universal freedom to all Americans and protection from tyrannical government vis-a-vis freedom of rebellion.

Tax:

Democrat: the means by which the government funds all infrastructure and programs carried out by the American government. Something which may be proportionally increased or decreased depending on earnings.

Republican: the means by which government should fund infrastructure such as roads and other basic requirements of the nation. A type of theft of property.

Second Amendment:

Democrat: the right to bear arms in order to facilitate a well organized citizen militia for internal defense of the country.

Republican: the right to personal possession of fire arms for the purposes of self and community protection. A constitutional idea which recognizes the intrinsic right of Americans to rebel against tyrannical government.

Progressive:

Democrat: the political ethos of creating a fairer playing field for all Americans to be able to pursue their personal desires.

Republican: an epithet used to describe Democrats.

Conservative:

Democrat: a political theory based on upholding old fashioned and potentially antiquated social values, as well as a view of the world which presupposes free market economies to be preferable to socialized economies.

Republican: A branch of political philosophy which is meant to protect constitutional rights vis-a-vis maintenance of laws and cultural values reflective of economic and cultural self determination.

Race:

Democrat: an inaccurate means by which to define varying ethnic groups with unique cultural features.

Republican: The Races of White, Black, Hispanic, etc...

Racism:

Democrat: the inequality caused by unfair power relationships and assumptions of cultural superiority expressed by a dominant group against groups which it views as inferior.

Republican: animosity among the races, affecting all races, but especially related to the relationship between Blacks, Whites, and Hispanic people.

Gender:

Democrat: a flexible assignment of identity according to the degree to which one identifies with the concepts of “sex.”

Republican: heterogeneous male and female.

Sexism:

Democrat: a complex system of gender based alienation which places males in a privileged social position to women and “differently gendered” people. Existing on a continuum and at intersection with race.

Republican:

- problems related to misanthropy or misogyny.

- A conspiratorial concept of the left.

Conclusion:

Who is allowed to define society? What type of cultural hegemony is better for the development of a fair and equal nation? Why are the meanings of words so important to understanding the narrative of all discussions from religion to politics, morality to ethics, and beyond?

In fact, the meanings of words are transient snapshots of historical implication, each word congealing under the gaze of the current culture which seeks to use it to define itself. The concept of exact meaning of a word seems almost as intangible as defining the God of the old Testament, who may appear in human form in the garden and in absolute and blinding form as a burning bush reveals his spirit. Or is it is absolute and infinite as Spinoza's intangible ultimate universalism of an all being non God energy pervading all things?

Just as with this question, the question of the political discourse, which for the purposes of this paper we have simplified at an extreme level, we find that words never really mean one thing, and that their definition seems almost to be the cause of bi-partisan alienation among the political classes, economic classes, and ethnic classes of the United States and beyond.

Because this problem of definition is at an absolute impasse, how should we then react to others in our own society who hold words to be defined differently from our preferred usage?

How to we differentiate between ideas, concepts, and normalized usages of language?

Naturally, as a fair minded and compassionate person, I would wish to suggest some idealized and foggy conception of a middle ground in which all people may patiently engage in philosophical debate and reason, but this seems an unrealistic and perhaps overly utopian goal. Because of my own lack of understanding of the ethical problems this topic presents, I give no suggestion, but rather leave these words open to the interpretation of the reader “E Plurubus Unum.”