LibertatemBoard

Narland wrote:

What is your outlook for the 2024 election, and its possible results?

I am remiss that I forgot to mention my expectation (courtesy of Mike Davis) that the CO Supreme Court was going to carry through on that one hack judge's finding that Trump had committed insurrection, but she wasn't going to go out on a limb and remove him herself. No, she was just setting up the pretense for her partisan confederates to take that step. Of course, this will set precedent that other states will attempt to use to remove Trump from their ballots. I doubt it will stand with SCOTUS, but I wonder whether it would have a material impact on the election if it did stand.

Narland wrote:

It assumes that people cannot do with their own property as they would otherwise lawfully see fit without permission from (and payment to) an overlord. It makes one a serf in their own country that is supposedly free. And it is a step away from the right to exercise one's liberty of the pursuit (business) of happiness (finding contentment (by happenstance) in providing a product or service to others) toward the Marxist/Socialist goal of the abolition of private property.

Just as socialism destroys the optimal and spontaneous pricing mechanism of individual goods, Soviet style planning commissions abolish the creative/destructive negentropic spontaneity of trade and commerce of the marketplaces themselves (that is places to conduct that industry, trade and commerce) in real costs and prices for location, storage and transportation of goods and services. Planning commissions obfuscate and distort the free market signals; limit people in their right to conduct their business unless in certain zones; destroy fairness by limiting options / raising the costs of doing business (actually favoring nepotism and those who can pay to play); and pricing young or starting entrepreneurs out of the market.

Portland Oregon built an very large business district (using imminent domain and wasting taxpayer monies) that was mostly emptily for nearly 2 decades while taxing the local businesses to death. 100s of millions in people's productivity lost. People need to exercise their Liberty to quickly adjust to the market forces to do business when and where convenient for the people interacting with the market. Just like no supercomputer can predict optimal prices better than the spontaneous open market, neither can any civil planner have the infinite knowledge necessary for the best places of optimal growth/development/death, nor the placements and movements of those markets (and measure tham accurately against other needs and wants of the people and their property.

Oh Portland, say no more! Actually, I have very little experience with planning commissions, and I don't know if we have the same phenomenon in Texas. Maybe Austin does, but I think we grow pretty wild around here. Maybe some public-private partnerships in establishing major retail areas, but I don't think anything on a large scale with such a heavy hand as you describe.

Narland wrote:

100 years ago (before all these Progressive experiments) 90% of workers were self-employed, and 10% of workers were employees. Progressives need most people used to being employees so that when the Revolution comes, the transfer to a dictatorship of the proletariat is as seamless as possible. Trump and especially Ramaswamay's proposals to dismantle the unconstitutional Administrative State, and get rid of 90% of regulations are a good start. The transformation of Sweden to a market economy was swift. Returning to 90% of a constituency being self-employed producers (who historically are very hostile to unnecessary and nuisance regulators and regulation that don't contribute to wealth creation) tend to elect public officers who think the same way.

That would be pretty nice.

Narland wrote:

Good questions. I am 20 years behind the curve as to current capabilities. If I have some free time it is something to brush up on. Even if we get a probe going at 10%-20% the speed of light it will provide an impetus to continue exploration.

10-20% of the speed of light is very fast.

The speed of light is 670,616,629 miles per hour. In August 2016, New Horizons was reported to have traveled at speeds of more than 52,000 mph. I think that was around its peak, but still less than 1/1,000th of 10% of the speed of light. We've got quite a ways to go.

Then again, I wouldn't mind a mission to intercept the Voyager space probes and retrieve their golden records before a much smarter species finds them.

Narland wrote:

Lol. We had access to some spiffy toys toward the end of the cold war. Our cadre had integrated an NES console into an electronic countermeasures monitor to play Donkey Kong (and other games) during down time. The command was both impressed and incensed at the same time. Our punishment was was more of an incentive to help upgrade future equipment than anything else.

If my tractor could talk to me, do my laundry, and grab me a Dr. Pepper from the fridge, my wife would probably divorce me and take the tractor for herself.

Lol

Narland wrote:

According to some Idaho is the great American redoubt. At least 11 neighboring counties from Oregon want to join the State. By 2075 Idaho might be as big as Alberta, or twice that size if Alberta wants to join.

Nice. I would make a joke here, but I wouldn't want to be put on a Canadian extremist watch list.

Narland wrote:

I am reading Mark Levin's "The Democrat Party Hates America." So far it isn't anything I didn't already learn in school or remember first hand from the 60s through today. Let me know if any one has any thoughts, comments, or critiques of it.

I don't really keep up with Mark Levin, but I seem to understand that he has a problem with people who are critical of the neoconservatives, going as far as to call them anti-Semitic. Please let me know if he expresses such sentiments in his book. Also, please let me know if you find the book to ultimately be edifying.

In a month or two, I'm considering reading a sampling of the Platonic and Aristotelian corpora, after I finish a couple other things. Maybe I'll hop over to Confucius after that, either that or jump over to The Open Society and Its Enemies vol 1 sometime after finishing the Republic.

Miami Jai-Alai 3 wrote:

GMS Cuban: Yes I do. Suzi, I noticed an interesting fact we need to point out, by we I mean all of us, 3 leftist liberal democrat progressive judges voted no and disagreed with the 4 leftist democrat judges on the insurrection charges against President Trump and or his democratic rights to be on the Colorado election ballots. Republican President Trump.

I have always said any lawyer will tell you laws are opened to interpretations. Juries sometimes cant decided if a person is guilty or not guilty based on the same so called evidence. It is called a hung Jury. Judges can decide and do decide differently on certain cases as they did on the Colorado case against President Trump.

Juries and Judges can be biased and partisan, like hateful leftists Leticia James, and smiling Judge Engoron in Trump's face, all persons noticed.

But many x numbers of leftists in American terms as I call them, don't see it.

The dems realize DJT will have to be jailed or worse if they want to win, bc Biden and other dems have been such failures

Merry Christmas Eve!

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Micah 5:2

The Problems with Classical Liberalism
https://odysee.com/@newdiscourses:9/the-problems-with-classical-liberalism:c

James Lindsay has some ideas about classical liberalism...
There are some problems with classical liberalism as it's running into the 21st Century:
1) We're under a provocation from an ongoing communist cultural revolution that is trying to unseat classical liberalism
2) There is a huge amount of confusion based on conceptual polysemy in terms of what it means to be liberal in the first place - liberalism is conflated with progressivism and also neo-liberalism
3a) A need for a clear and updated articulation of what an individual is and how one fits into a social network without losing one's individuality
3b) What it means to own things as an individual so that one's inalienable right to property and pursuit of happiness can be maintained
3c) What it means to have privacy in an increasingly digital and surveilled world with increasing technology that allows you to extract enormous amounts of usable information from the environment, very quickly and mechanically by third parties and state actors that could act maliciously

Is he right? Is he missing anything?

Fierrol wrote:

The Problems with Classical Liberalism
https://odysee.com/@newdiscourses:9/the-problems-with-classical-liberalism:c

James Lindsay has some ideas about classical liberalism...
There are some problems with classical liberalism as it's running into the 21st Century:
1) We're under a provocation from an ongoing communist cultural revolution that is trying to unseat classical liberalism
2) There is a huge amount of confusion based on conceptual polysemy in terms of what it means to be liberal in the first place - liberalism is conflated with progressivism and also neo-liberalism
3a) A need for a clear and updated articulation of what an individual is and how one fits into a social network without losing one's individuality
3b) What it means to own things as an individual so that one's inalienable right to property and pursuit of happiness can be maintained
3c) What it means to have privacy in an increasingly digital and surveilled world with increasing technology that allows you to extract enormous amounts of usable information from the environment, very quickly and mechanically by third parties and state actors that could act maliciously

Is he right? Is he missing anything?

He is missing the problem with Classical Liberalism in its historic context. Where Classical Liberalism diverges has always been with the divide between those who have an ontological perspective of Liberalism (sees what it is or sees its fruits but is usually ignorant of how to conceptualize it into reality), and those who have an epistemological understanding of Liberalism (knows what it is, and how to get there but might not not necessarily care to get there). Classical liberalism can be likened to a crop and the minds and actions of the next generation the fruition of that crop in liberty and equality.

1. Yes, because Classical Liberals ceded the reigns of power to Marxists ideologues or their useful stooges who now run our schools, bureaucracies, and media. Until they understand that it is time to do or die, Liberalism is a dead weight to those who make the US what it is. They have written down and broadcast for a hundred plus years that they would do this, and each step along the way most American sat back and did nothing.

2. Yes. see point 1. above: if someone controls the schools, courts, bureaus, and media they can inject fud (fear, uncertainty and doubt) at any point of any issue, including what words mean, what lense people should visualize things, and whom to love and hate, all using gobbley-gook word salad emoted to a particular segment who thinks it means something and unthinkingly act to make it so.

3a-c. NO. See point 1 above. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. 5000 years of progress made in the last 300 years of Western Civ (sans the cancer of Marxism and its totalitarian cognates) cannot be recouped by updated articulation, but using the articulation of the vocabulary of Classical Liberalism as it is (as it is iron clad objective reasoning based on all of human history in like of reality). Letting adversaries define the debate, the terms of the debate, and the meaning of the words, and then trying to articulate a winning augmentation that is lost by definition is stupid. We need to reform (go back to the original) definitions, and define the debate according to Objective Realism, Evangelical Classical Liberalism and Free Market Economics, and toss Marx and Marx-speak into the ash heap of history.

All this goes without saying that the last 120 years of Marxist Progressivism need to be excised (and in some cases excorcised), from our insitutions in order to return to being a land of liberty.

And now Maine has joined Colorado in being deranged (TDS)

Narland wrote:

Yes. That would be a most productive start to raising a generation of Americans dedicated to the Founding principles of Truth, Justice and Liberty, and who find despotism repulsive enough to do something to stop it from happening to them. Marxist dogma (dialectic determinism/materialist determinism) leverages any perceived crack to demoralize/incapacitate their enemy using the targets own words, thoughts, and deeds as a Hegelian stratagem) to achieve their aims (for textbook Phase I). It drew away those who wanted the fruits of Liberalism but had adopted an Marxian ideology that couldn't get them there, and the fraudulent redefinition of the words kept those who had an epistemologically sound understanding of Liberty off balance and groping fore ways to communicate the fraud. It is more complicated than that but that is the results of the synthesis. Recapturing the concepts, principles and activities that brought about the American Founding -- teaching the next generation specifically using the words in context unadulterated from Marxist redefinitions to propagate their lies and using the words of the Ancients, Medieval, Renaissance, Reformation (and for the US specifically) the Scottish Enlightenment in revival, reformation, and restitution whilst wedding it to a people who wish to live the same is a mandatory first principle.

Then he can go on to dissemination without having to DeMarxify at every stage what is really meant by Liberal, person, etc., what is actually practicing polity, due process, equal justice under law, etc.; and actually exercising one's rights justly, truly, and effectively as a free people in a free society. (Instead of being a pretend free people who do not know they are in an oppressive society especially when that means defending oneself lawfully in the exercise of their liberty to freedom that is seemingly anti-social behavior which despots love to misconstrue as criminal violence in order to subjugate those who otherwise would want to live free, and to be and let be even if they did not know it, could articulate it, nor conceive it properly/rightly.)

I certainly support this kind of instruction and persuasion, respectively, in theory. I also like the idea of using the language of liberty in context, and without Marxian redefinitions. However, more often than not, it is the Marxian redefinitions that most people encounter first, replete with diverse philosophies of collectivism, authoritarianism, revolution, resentment, nihilism, materialism, noble lies, worship of the state and of man, and of an esoteric received vision of progress. It's so bad that most people have been thoroughly dumbfounded. They don't even know what they don't know.

I support using words in ways that are faithful to their historical usage, doing so both as a matter of unyielding principle as well as for the retention of meaning and potency. By every means possible, we should contest these forced semantic shifts. However as you've noted here, the fraudulent redefinition of words have already been used successfully to get the better of those who have had an epistemologically sound understanding of liberty who did not know how to communicate the fraud. How does one communicate ideas of liberty to those who have not yet learned the requisite language, and conversely how does one defend liberty from those who seek to malign it when that defense is unintelligible to so many? A well and classically educated citizenry could solve this quandary, but this is not the current state of things, nor will it be for the foreseeable future.

So, how far does one go to teach the words in context unadulterated from Marxist redefinitions? I can understand communicating these things to those who will listen and that's fine for it's part, but in today's distracted world how many people will be passed up by this approach if they are too impatient to learn? How much compromise in language is too much?

Hope everyone has a blessed 2024

Happy Gregorian New Year everybody!

In the 1st or 2nd grade one of the teachers (music teacher iirc) taught us about New Year's resolution (NYR) which (as 2nd grade teachers are wont to do) made it sound like something insipidly stupid from Sesame Street or Romper Room -- and then we had to sing this trite song. The teacher next went student by student and had us (pupils) state what our NYRs are. I resolved to never make a NRY just because it was New Years. I have kept this my whole life. :) Be resolute all year round.

Narland wrote:

Wars of ideology are always won with words in particular contextual meanings. No quarter has been asked and none should be given. Those who's definitions define the debate win, those who submit to the meanings of the opponent lose. One has to mean what one says and says what one says in context as Liberal (proper sense) Objective Realists (or Libertarian Industrial Objectivists), or Subjective Essentialists (if you really want to torture yourself that badly), and when the opponent says, "Wait, what?" use that as an opportunity to explain (to the degree they are open to discussion). You define the the terms of the debate, and explain its coherence just like Americans used to do before dumbed down by Socialist dis-educators to not think about it and just submit to whatever dialect Marxists/Socialists/Progressives being used at the time.

Do we disagree on this? I don't think so, but maybe on the particulars of the last statement. I'm concerned that it sounds like this is a prescription for simply talking past those who talk in Newspeak, whether they are the deceivers or the deceived. I understand the intention of Newspeak is to limit the ability of the user to speak and by extension think of certain concepts, but I don't think Marxism & Co. have quite such complete control as described by Orwell. Not yet, anyway, although the grip the left wing ideologies have on the public consciousness is almost beyond belief at this point. But there is a weak point I don't think they can get rid of. These are naturally insurgent ideologies. As established ideologies, they are just as vulnerable to the criticism they promote as any other, and so can only remain dominant with censorship, threat, and violence. Without these extra-persuasive enforcers, it can be relentlessly attacked by its own tools. One is free to show the inherent contradictions in the system, as it were, and I don't think Newspeak is any protection against this.

Narland wrote:

It starts with raising the next generation to education and morality, and holding oneself to those standards as well. By education it is meant a liberal education (matriculating renaissance men and women who are a jack of all trades and master of one (as able), conversant in the arts and sciences, fully capable as a productive free person in a free society (with free and open markets) who can govern oneself from within so as to not have to be governed from without). By morality it is meant understanding the good, truth, justness, or beauty (or lack thereof) of one's actions, and the precise effects and accurately predicting/understanding its consequences in light of a measure of absolute beneficence. The legal standard being the ethics Jesus Christ (The 10 commandments, shema, and golden rule) as developed (in our case) with 800 years of Anglo Common Law jurisprudence. These three things are necessary for Classical Liberalism to be freely lived such that is logically consistent, rationally valid, and reasonably coherent within itself; and as exemplars to other nations with contrary systems.

Agreed.

Narland wrote:

You will be surprised. Most people want to understand things without being lied to, defrauded, or coerced into something they are unsure of instead of remaining in the dumbed-down bellyfeel and newspeak the Marxian derived ideologies relegate their servile cogs into the machinery of state. When universal principles are given and explained, and a person is given a taste of natural real world success, most take to it -- some awkwardly at first and some like fish to water. Some people (who have been totally propagandized by dialectic tyranny) will prefer the devil that they know to the devil that they do not. And the rare few will be totally deranged zealots of their ideology no matter how much evidence is given contrawise.

Sure, people don't like being lied to in principle, but many will often go out of their way to avoid that unpleasant sense of cognitive dissonance they get when they find out they've been lied to. It seems to me that to make one's introduction to liberalism a challenge to one's fundamental worldview is the proverbial catching of flies with vinegar. You'll get some but you could probably get more. Now, I would like to say I have had more success by chipping away at the foundations of people's progressive worldviews, but I don't know that I can say this either. It is a long and tedious process subject to a lot of backsliding, and they will often lose interest in being your project before you're done sculpting them. But it also doesn't require a full adoption of a competing worldview in decisive rhetorical combat, either. Any amount of progress has the effect of moving them away from their starting ideology.

Narland wrote:

When one read's the Founders, Framers, Classical Liberals, always use a Webster's 1828 dictionary (or Webster's 1913), or the writer's terms in light of Webster's 1828 -- or if you have access to an excellent etymological dictionary how the word was used at that time. Otherwise use dictionaries based on Webster's New World Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged 1st and 2nd editions (or its derivatives), and try never to use dictionaries based on Merriam-Webster especially after WW2. Read works recommended by the Classical Liberals themselves and do same regarding terminology.

An excellent recommendation. I wasn't aware that the Merriam- addition to the name was particularly grievous. Apparently, the Merriam publishing company bought Webster's after Noah's death in 1843, and made their first changes to his text in 1864. For my purposes, it looks like anything before the 1847 printing should be uncontaminated by the Merriams. Do you have any opinions on Webster's 1840 second edition?

Fierrol wrote:

An excellent recommendation. I wasn't aware that the Merriam- addition to the name was particularly grievous. Apparently, the Merriam publishing company bought Webster's after Noah's death in 1843, and made their first changes to his text in 1864. For my purposes, it looks like anything before the 1847 printing should be uncontaminated by the Merriams. Do you have any opinions on Webster's 1840 second edition?

Merriam (the grand-nephew of Noah Webster) sued to use the right to use Webster's name and set up a competing company to Webster's New World Publishers and iirc correctly reached an out of court settlement. (Which failed to followed the original (for the life of me i cannot remember the technical term over which taxonomical classicization systems are derived (and the search engines are no help)) in archival sciences) a Subjectivist (Existentialist) set of principles, instead of retaining its objective directives. Later court cases decided one can use Webster's name so long as they follow Webster's science -- Merriam excluded.

Our US legal system until the 1990s confined itself to Webster's New World Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged 2nd edition and all updates and used Blacks Law Dictionary as a technical source, (but I would rely on 1-3 and be leery of 5th and beyond, and peruse Bouvier's Law dictionary as well). Encyclopedia Americana before WW1, is a great source of understanding how Americans saw things as self-governing anti-Socialists. Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England made for the Common Law Jurisdiction of your State, and always read the footnotes of court cases to see how a word of legal or constitutional is being actually being defined.

Note: American legalese is treacherous and closer to Middle English than post-Modern English. For example the crime of parading (-- meaning to move about ostentatiously in order to muster a militia, or rally a crowd to martial action) without warrant is an act of insurrection. Never admit to parading around to someone who is trying to frame you for an alleged insurrection, because it doesn't mean what most people think it means (something akin to a Macy's New Years day Parade, or just showing off to be seen). Most legal words don't. The protect part of protect and serve on police vehicles means to serve court documents -- you've been served. Without prejudice is a bad thing. etc.

My take is similar to Noah Webster and other founding father's in that Language needs to be conserved where pertinent, and free to breathe where not. For example, changing the meaning of a word in a contract, covenant or constitution is fraud, plain and simple, thus it's original usage needs preserved. If freedom means "the liberty to do what ought be done" as a legal, political, and constitutional matter, changing it to mean, "no barrier to doing whatever one wants to do," is fraud. Mirriam-Webster is different in that it seeks to allow words to change to fit the current sociological norm accidental to whatever larger dialectic is being orchestrated in society. WNWDotEL would not, and list such (if warranted) as erroneous or aberrant usage. The word hacker changing meaning to include not just a guy with a hatchet but someone behind a kb would be included in the listing of definitions (which both do).

Narland wrote:

Merriam (the grand-nephew of Noah Webster) sued to use the right to use Webster's name and set up a competing company to Webster's New World Publishers and iirc correctly reached an out of court settlement. (Which failed to followed the original (for the life of me i cannot remember the technical term over which taxonomical classicization systems are derived (and the search engines are no help)) in archival sciences) a Subjectivist (Existentialist) set of principles, instead of retaining its objective directives. Later court cases decided one can use Webster's name so long as they follow Webster's science -- Merriam excluded.

Our US legal system until the 1990s confined itself to Webster's New World Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged 2nd edition and all updates and used Blacks Law Dictionary as a technical source, (but I would rely on 1-3 and be leery of 5th and beyond, and peruse Bouvier's Law dictionary as well). Encyclopedia Americana before WW1, is a great source of understanding how Americans saw things as self-governing anti-Socialists. Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England made for the Common Law Jurisdiction of your State, and always read the footnotes of court cases to see how a word of legal or constitutional is being actually being defined.

Note: American legalese is treacherous and closer to Middle English than post-Modern English. For example the crime of parading (-- meaning to move about ostentatiously in order to muster a militia, or rally a crowd to martial action) without warrant is an act of insurrection. Never admit to parading around to someone who is trying to frame you for an alleged insurrection, because it doesn't mean what most people think it means (something akin to a Macy's New Years day Parade, or just showing off to be seen). Most legal words don't. The protect part of protect and serve on police vehicles means to serve court documents -- you've been served. Without prejudice is a bad thing. etc.

My take is similar to Noah Webster and other founding father's in that Language needs to be conserved where pertinent, and free to breathe where not. For example, changing the meaning of a word in a contract, covenant or constitution is fraud, plain and simple, thus it's original usage needs preserved. If freedom means "the liberty to do what ought be done" as a legal, political, and constitutional matter, changing it to mean, "no barrier to doing whatever one wants to do," is fraud. Mirriam-Webster is different in that it seeks to allow words to change to fit the current sociological norm accidental to whatever larger dialectic is being orchestrated in society. WNWDotEL would not, and list such (if warranted) as erroneous or aberrant usage. The word hacker changing meaning to include not just a guy with a hatchet but someone behind a kb would be included in the listing of definitions (which both do).

Some of these changing definitions sound akin to Orwellian Newspeak