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The clearest way to portray the ideological political world is to entirely abandon the contemporary left/right political spectrum. Political ideologies should be displayed on the basis of their relation to total individualism, that is, the ability of the individual to engineer all aspects of his life, and it's opposite of collectivism, that is, the ability of the state to engineer all aspects of the individual's life.

In my view, both individualism and collectivism in their absolutes are undesirable and an agreeable balance must be struck. Progressivism, is a cultivation of the state that bases it's power on weakening the individual, through the usurpation of individual rights and the aggrandizement of itself. The strong, independent individual is the enemy of the progressive and collectivist State.

The State does not exist to be the enemy or overseer of the individual, nor the protector of the individual - especially from himself. It exists to protect the "rights" of every individual equally and justly.

FrankZeleniuk 8 June 15
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1

The 2016 Republican primary was a rare example of a free-for-all with many diverse candidates, and with the winner up for grabs. All viewpoints got time on the stage.

The winner was decided by the people. The people enforced their power over politicians. The winner was a rookie.

The Democratic primary was decided before it began, in a smoke filled room.

3

@klhljhjlhkj @genkiferal @TimTuolomne @FrankZeleniuk @SpikeTalon @Hanno @GaryWitt @Beachslim @Lightman

The Gini number characterizes distributions, and it's often applied to wealth distributions. If one person has all the wealth, Gini=1, and if wealth is equally distributed, Gini=0.

One can apply the Gini number to the power distribution. After all, power begets wealth. Look at the Pelosis and Clintons.

Power should be distributed as widely as possible. Democrats are obsessed with wealth distribution but they oppose power distribution. Democrats want centralized power and Republicans want decentralized power. Republicans like local government over federal government.

One can define a number N which is the effective number of independent entities that have tangible power. As Gini increases, N decreases.

In a monarchy, N=1.

In the American Constitution, N=4. Prez, Senate, House, SCOTUS.

If states have more power than the fed, then N=50. Yay!

The plot shows wealth and Gini. Nations should aspire to be in the upper left corner.

The wealth Gini characterizes the fraction of millionaires, but it's insensitive to the fraction of billionaires. This suggests that it takes more than one number to properly characterize the wealth distribution.

You want to make millionaires, but you don't want to overdo it and make too many billionaires.

Politicians that distributed power: jaymaron.com/badass.html [jaymaron.com]

The Ancient Roman constitution was flexible. In times of peace, Rome was goverrned by the Senate, and N was large. In times of crisis, the Senate appointed a dictator, with N=1. This is what it takes to get stuff done. Once the dictator got the job done, the Senate would decommission the dictator and power returned to the Senate.

The story of Cincinnatus is an example. Rome was getting its ass kicked by invaders. The Senate did everything it could to stop them and failed. If Rome gets conquered, the Senators don't get to be Senators anymore. In desperation they went to the farm of Cincinnatus and declared him dictator. Cincinnatus used the dictatorial power and crushed the invaders. He resigned the dictatorship a mere 15 days after being appointed and returned to his farm.

Years later, a similar crisis occurred and Cincinnatus was again tapped to be dictator. People must have thought he did a good job the first time. People were confident that he's not a powermonger.

During times of crisis, you want the government to get stuff done. During times of peace, you want the government to not get stuff done. People can do the job themselves. Increasing N is a great way to stop the government from doing stuff.

In the land rushes, the fed gave farmers 160 acres, which enabled them to be individually independent. Having individual independence is a requirement for having individual power. Democrats work to undermine individual independence. Democrats will tax rurals off their land.

Once upon a time, the duty of the fed was to help Americans harness the frontier, and help them tap natural resources. Natural resources beget wealth and independence. Today, Democrats oppose tapping natural resources. Democrats oppose individual independence.

Governor Palin's slogan is prime. Drill baby drill. Grill baby grill.

Most of the Founding Fathers were farmers. Call them the Founding Farmers. Upon the conclusion of their presidencies, they retired to their farms. They should have included a clause in the Constitution: Retiring presidents must farm.

President Polk campaigned with the pledge to serve exactly 1 term and to not run for re-election. Polk honored his pledge. At the conclusion of his presidency, he was popular because he doubled the size of America (his other campaign pledge. Job well done). Polk didn't run for re-election and instead retired to his Farm.

In Ancient Athens, offices were for 1 year and couldn't be repeated. Most offices were determined by lottery.

Eisenhower owns a farm on the Gettysburg battlefield. Reagan owns a ranch.

I agree that a national government needs to be more flexible. It can really remain minimal, as a watchdog government for most of the time and when the society (nation) is threatened by foreign enemies or domestic turmoil a known leader could step in and organize a mobilization.

2

You just described "The Great Reset." It's a libertarian/communalist alliance using blockchain instead of multilateral institutions to coordinate global capital flows to small, decentralized social entrepreneurs for international development.

2

I like @TimTuolomne's observation that the American Constitution emphasizes limiting government.

We need politicians that aren't powermongers. This is a page honoring people who possessed power and didn't abuse it. jaymaron.com/badass.html [jaymaron.com]

This is the "Cincinnatus" virtue, and Washington had this virtue. We need to celebrate this virtue.

Ancient constitutions: jaymaron.com/history.html [jaymaron.com]

@klhljhjlhkj Lets start with George Washington. There are many others, leading me to suspect that Mr Alphabet Soup has not looked at all, just presumed and stated it as fact.

@TimTuolomne

After the Rev War was won, a cabal of generals tried to seize power. They approached Washington with the plot and offered to install Washington as dictator. The generals enlisted Washington because they weren't powerful enough to do it on their own.

Washington refused. He said:

I didn't kick the ass of King George 3 to become King George 1.

Washington went to Independence Hall and resigned his commission and returned to his farm.

America honored Washington with an obelisk.

The purpose of the Washington Monument is:

A: To glorify Washington
B: Stonemasons showing off
C: To erect the world's largest phallic symbol
D: All of the above

0

Left/Right... and Progressive/Conservative... there are multiple axes they are not the same things

@klhljhjlhkj I just told you the better one. The system isn't binary.

You can be Conservative and Left Wing Or Right Wing and Progressive. You can't call all LW Progressive or all RW Conservative... that is plainly wrong.
BTW how is being Conservative regressive that's a nonsense.

A Conservative can be of the Left or of the Right there are 4 main political axes.... Left vs Right and Progressive vs Conservative. They are opposites. Conservatism is the political philosophy that advocates the preservation of the best of the established order in society and opposing radical change or simply change for its own sake.

@klhljhjlhkj Oh dear try not black and white or not just a choice of 1 or the other or just us and them, if you find it too difficult
Maybe you should try the political compass and it will explain it to you with diagrams.

@klhljhjlhkj It's not woke you idiot

@klhljhjlhkj No you don't..... the language we speak and a dictionary does. BTW I used it not you.
Hate to tell you this but non-binary was a term appropriated by the gay community not the other way around.

Example from before the sexual revolution...
Not relating to, composed of, or involving just two things:
"Aristotelian ontology is non-binary on the second level in that it allows for degrees of being"
Relating to, using, or denoting a system of numerical notation that does not have 2 as a base:
"the enumeration data is stored in a non-binary format"

Having worked in computers almost all my life the terms binary and non-binary have always been around.
Aristotle, Computers and Maths are not exactly woke.
My use of it btw was totally appropriate and nothing to do with wokeness.
You keep losing the argument stop wasting my time

@klhljhjlhkj Never hear of the word context either eh.... you still lose

@klhljhjlhkj You are a dope....

@klhljhjlhkj yawn

3

Wrong.

There is ONE party that defends the Constitution - the only document in history to LIMIT government, not limit the rights of the people, as every other government on Earth does. I suggest you read it.

That party is the Party of Lincoln, who founded the Republican party as a response to the criminal enterprise engaging in blackmail, slavery, coersion, kidnapping and murder since its inception, known as the Democrat party.

Suddenly faced with a party of true principle, Democrats only recourse was to slander the Republican party. And more than half of Americans are functionally so dumb, they have fallen for it. I suggest you read the platform of the Republican party.

Before making nonsense assertions, be sure of your history, and your facts.

You're just joking right, or have you not been keeping up with current events? Here's a start-
[ammoland.com]

If he were alive today, Lincoln would be appalled at some of what his Party is doing nowadays. Don't care either if you or anyone else consider such to be just RINOs, that still doesn't remove the fact they are registered Republican politicians. When Republicans start going along with Democrats on gun control laws, that's truly disturbing regardless if said proposed legislation ever makes it to law, and is a telltale sign the modern day Republican Party has become a joke and certainly not a humorous one at that. The OP was telling the truth, nowadays neither major US political Party cares about all of our individual rights, the two Parties now are communist and communist lite. If you still don't believe me, why pray tell do you suppose there were and still are so many Republicans who were against Trump? Because Trump actually made an effort to honor all of our rights, which in turn upset the Republican establishment.

From the above linked to article: "Rights can’t be negotiated, and there’s no room to compromise on them. You’d think Republicans would have figured this out by now, but as the old saying goes, there’s no fixing stupid." Indeed so, there is no room to compromise on our rights, and any Republican (which nowadays there's an increasing amount of them) who attempts to do so becomes an enemy of the people, for if there is no 2A then there won't be any other rights because the 2A protects the rest. In light of some recent events, I humbly suggest you reconsider your version of history on the matter, especially recent history that is affecting us all.

@SpikeTalon I don't think I said anything contrary to your opinion. I never mentioned republican or democrat. I do realize you understand liberalism as democrat and republican as individualist. I agree they both represent neither today. Although republicans do tend to give more lip service to the individual. Democrats rarely mention the individual except in collective terms, such as: we need to help the poor, the Blacks, the rich, women, men, the LGBTQ+ community. Democrat supporters that wear the collective labels they speak of think it is about them personally. If they help an individual it is always framed in the context of them being part of some victimized group.

It is interesting to see the responses to what people think I said there.

Oops. sorry thought you were making a comment on the post.

@FrankZeleniuk I get what you're saying, but paying lip service to individualism only some of the times isn't good enough though, because that means our individual rights could be threatened. We need someone who all of the time respects our rights and individualism.

Yes, responses should be interesting.

@SpikeTalon You are talking about fake Republicans. It is wrong to call them Republicans. They have no intention of defending the Constitution, so they are not Republicans. They are Democrats who lie as part of their heritage, including claiming to be Republicans. If you blame the Republican party for Democrats who lie, you are doing a favor for Democrats and slandering true Republicans.

I agree with your principle ,I am not subject to your political system directly but it filters down to me as an individual under Americas systematic control.

@klhljhjlhkj The Constitution IS the defense of your family - even if you are unaware of the fact. Separating those concepts makes no sense.

Of course, if everyone were like you, ie completely unaware of and never having read the Constitution, THAT would make it just a piece of paper. Fortunately, there are millions who are aware and are willing to defend the Constitution to keep our government limited. They are the true Republicans; defenders of the Constitutional Republic, get it?

@klhljhjlhkj I was and am addressing Earthly concerns sir. We must render to Caesar what is Caeser's and render to God what is God's. I am pleased that you realize that your family's ETERNAL salvation is only in God's hands. On Earth, God respects everyone's free will since the Sacrifice. That means on Earth, your family may be killed by those who do not know God, and God will not intervene, because they are saved in eternity. And on Earth, only respect of the Constitution has much power to prevent that. Abandon respect for that piece of paper at the peril of your family on Earth.

5

“Equal rights” are under continuous attack.

Equal rights necessarily leads to unequal outcomes.

“Equitable outcomes” is now the goal…. Which necessarily requires un-equal rights.

Equitable outcomes and the desire to reach that removes the need for personal responsibility and the need to reward accordingly to contribution.

In my view this is the biggest threat civilisation is facing today.

An item can either be priced or rationed. If you destroy the free market, then rationing will happen, and it will be decided by goverrnment.

2

Welcome to libertarianism!

Yup yup.

Well, today I would classify myself as a minarchist libertarian.
I don't see where that is on the contemporary political spectrum. On the individual to total government scale I would say it occupies an area stretching from anarchy to small government. It tends to be all over the map really with left and right libertarianism and thick and thin libertariansim, anarcho-capitalist libertarianism. I think libertarianism needs to clarify itself a little bit more in order to be a functioning political movement. Although it would be argued by anarcho-capitalists that it is not even a political movement because is apolitical. Why would they, in that case, even concern themselves with forming a political party at all.

@FrankZeleniuk

True…. I only recently discovered that I am libertarian and not some weird atheist conservative that support some left wing principles.

One of the reasons I am on IDW is to understand myself and where I sit.
And your criticism regarding libertarians is fair and applies to me.

That is also the reason libertarians have not succeeded in winning elections anywhere and why we need to sort ourselves out.

I truly think libertarianism is the way forward.
I am just struggling with the details.

@Hanno @FrankZeleniuk @SpikeTalon @GaryWitt @TimTuolomne

Consider the sequence:

Individual, family, community, city, county, state, nation, world

Republicans steer things in the direction of the individual and Democrats do the reverse.

This applies both to liberty and to fiscal policy. For fiscal policy, an individualist wants tax to be weighted toward local government, not national government. State tax should be higher than national tax. The local police force should be funded by local tax.

For liberty, an individualist wants a world where collectivism can't crush individuals.

The plot has 2 axes, but the one true axis is a diagonal line going from the lower left to the upper right. The right place to be is the upper right. I see fiscal conservatism and social liberalism as the same.

If the libertarian party had not fielded a candidate in 2020, most of their votes would have gone to Trump, and Trump would have won. The Libertarian party cost Trump the election.

The Arrow Theorem says that a 3-way election is absurd. The final round of an election must have exactly 2 candidates. The Libertarian Party should have dropped out.

They should still hold debates. The Libertarian Party held lots of debates in 2016, with lots of candidates. Alas, few watched.

@klhljhjlhkj

It's close. Someone should do the numbers for libertarian votes 2016 and 2020 and present them.

5

I mostly agree. Two points of clarification: first, the purpose of government is to protect individuals from others. And that includes not allowing the majority to abuse a minority. And second, government doesn’t confer rights. You can call rights God given or not, but there are certain well-defined, well-recognized rights that the government must defend, but has no right to alter or abolish. The US Constitution is certainly the best and most complete statement of those inalienable rights.

I agree that the US constitution "is the best and most complete statement of those inalienable rights".

On your point, "the purpose of government is to protect individuals". How can it do that? It has been left to government and they have proven they will decide some are more worthy than others. It is the individual's responsibility to understand inalienable rights apply to other individuals. Governments must be the appointed authority to uphold the rights, equally, of all individuals. We, not the State, are our brother's keepers. The State does not see the individual in its application of justice. It must remain blind to the individual in order to apply the law equally. We see upon an individual's conviction that the circumstances of his crime and his worth to society can play a role in the harshness or mitigation of his sentencing and that is fair.

@Hanno @FrankZeleniuk

Subtle matter. Leftists assume that politics is simple. It's not. The problem of avoiding tyranny of the majority is hard. The Founding Fathers considered it a hard problem.

Simplicity bullies are evil.

@FrankZeleniuk I think we’re more or less in agreement, especially when you say, “Governments must be the appointed authority to uphold the rights, equally, of all individuals.”

@jaymaron

Leftists assume that politics is simple. It's not. The problem of avoiding tyranny of the majority is hard. The Founding Fathers considered it a hard problem.

Simplicity bullies are evil.

It is not understanding that breeds complexity. What one understands is simple.

I agree that designing a government is complex. There are so many fields and areas to consider and a high degree of foresight is necessary. The founding fathers knew the document they conceived was not perfect - the country was to try and work toward a more perfect union. It was the best yet to be conceived.

The tyranny of the majority is a problem of democracy but that would be a "universal" democracy. When it comes to individuals making a collective political decision (Essentially a democratic decision.), it helps if everyone has the same understanding of the basic principles that make the society cohesive. Minorities would not necessarily contribute to cohesiveness for whatever reason - differences in political ideology - maybe they prefer a monarchy, maybe socialism, however the prevailing form of government is what the population at the time of the societies conception agreed to and that should be what the majority should vote to keep. The minorities, while it should not be oppressed, it should not even have a vote unless they understand the principles of societal cohesion.
As Trump said, "America is not a socialist country." It is a problem of liberalism that it is all inclusive even of factors that may destroy it. In my view, a socialist in America should not have a vote. The government should conserve the Constitution so should be conservative. The society, the individuals that comprise it, is where liberalism can exist. Decisions regarding more local issues should be decentralized such as illustrated in the idea of States rights.

I don't think there is that much complexity in that.

@klhljhjlhkj A high bar was set to prevent tampering with the Bill of Rights and needfully so because the State has the tendency to aggrandize itself as the granter of those rights. It is each individual that must be aware of his rights as a sovereign individual. Currently there is great consternation about the 2nd amendment. There is nothing wrong with a right to protect oneself. The individual must be able to determine how that can best be done. It will depend upon how big the threat. There is not supposed to be any threat. The safer the individual feels the less concern he will have about methods of protection.
If government wanted to do away with the 2nd amendment they would better to keep the environment safe for the individual so he saw no need of it. Instead they prefer to try and whittle it away by ironically pointing to their failure and incapability to ensure the inalienable right of others are not violated.

A person not extending that right to others is the problem. Shooting an unarmed person is horrific to any rational individual. The violation is not the shooter owning a gun it is disrespecting the other's inalienable right to the security of his person and/or property. The inalienable right others grant to him. The State is not a real good protector of individual's as we see by all the shootings going on. Nor is it a good guardian of rights. It would take away the individual's right to self protection if it could. It says we'll protect you - no need to protect yourself.
That's when you know you need to protect yourself from them.

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