What Is Your Political Philosophy?

Fantastic response to my question Shiva_TD!

I am almost certain that you will be able to fit all this in somehow with something that I wrote back in 2012.

http://www.christianforums.com/t7653888/

An apology to all Americans from a Canadian, and a thank you!

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Some of my ancestors were Masons from Dixie who came to Country Harbour, Nova Scotia at the time of the American Revolution. I deeply appreciate the fact that so many Americans were closer to God than we Canadians tend to be and somehow your leaders were guided to not persecute us!

I also wish to apologize for the fact that the leadership of my nation was less guided by the Holy Spirit and we did not understand how the independence of America was comparable to the division of the Northern Kingdom of Israel from the Southern Kingdom of Judah at the time of King Rehoboam the son of Solomon.

I also wish to apologize for our elitism because it has been playing a significant role in your economic crash of 2008. If a higher percentage of Americans understood the full implications of truly wise monetary policy the world would begin to look quite different indeed!

http://www.michaeljournal.org/plenty49.htm

Chapter 49 — The History of Banking Control in the United States
Alain Pilote:

 

Back in 1990 I began to study near death experience accounts and I do suspect that the best answers available to questions of this nature are given in some of these experiences.

Only a few months ago I met a near death experiencer who while in the out of the body state....... saw the future....... and came back with a vision of how awesome that future can be and how we need to make the transition over to that vastly better world.

Whether what she saw is real or imagined.......I stand by my assertion that it is one of the best possible answers to questions like this that I have personally ever read.

Her initials are D. S. and I quote her in post #53, 55, 56 and 57:

http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...rencies-finance-films-address-problems-6.html

 

We rejected religion as the foundation for the United States as religion creates an "apartheid" state of government and aparthied is inherently tyrannical.

The Divine Right of Kings is based upon religious beliefs (propagated by the King for political purposes) while the Natural (Inalienable) Rights of the Person are not dependent upon any religious beliefs.

 

Not to disparage your concern but the statements by D.S. are jibberish nonsense.

We can all propose a "better world" but that means absolutely nothing without the logical and compelling arguments of how we are to pragmatically transition from what exists today to what it takes to reach a more utopian vision of tomorrow.

I can identify the problem of Statutory Ownership v Natural Right of Property but that merely identifies the problem and not a solution to the problem. When there isn't "enough, and as good as" land for the "common" then how do we address that problem. We've violated the Natural Right of Property if we deprive any person of free land or if we deprive the nomad from living off of the natural bounty of the lands. Our society has transition from the ability of the people to live off of nature so how can we possibly address that today? A person that cannot live off of the land cannot refuse employment, for example, because employment is their only means of survival. If the person cannot say no to employment then they are forced to accept the employment even when they can't provide for their survival and comfort based upon the employment.

We're really in one hell of a fix today and while I know it exists, and can point to numerous examples of the problem, I don't have the magic bullet to fix the problem.

 

Former atheist Howard Storm Ph. D. worded what he was shown about the future in a much more acceptable manner than D. S. did.

http://www.near-death.com/storm.html#a04

It seems that the problem of "debt slavery" had been broken and people in the future he was shown seemed free to be at home more……. raising children and gardening?!

One interesting statistic from American history that may prove to have some relationship to how this comes about is that President Abraham Lincoln saved American taxpayers four billion dollars in interest payments through a rather ingenious innovation in monetary policy.

http://www.michaeljournal.org/lincolnkennedy.htm
"In 1972, the United States Treasury Department was asked to compute the amount of interest that would have been paid if that 400 million dollars would have been borrowed at interest instead of being issued by Abraham Lincoln. They did some computations, and a few weeks later, the United States Treasury Department said the United States Government saved 4 billion dollars in interest because Lincoln had created his own money. So you can about imagine how much the Government has paid and how much we owe solely on the basis of interest." (Melvin Sickler)

 

I have read a powerful case that virtually all religions began with a human being having some sort of out of the body experience or near death experience.

Most all of these people say that the English language is insufficient to describe what they saw.

After they write down what they were shown to the best of their ability then the "experts" take over and spin their account in such a way that it will benefit the people who financially support those "experts."

Most religions were probably founded on a near death experience but within a few centuries the application of that religion to real life will tend to bear little resemblance to the future that the near death experiencer or out of body experiencer had seen.

 

That didn't answer my question. Forget about "statutory" anything. That's not what I'm asking about. I'm asking if, in your view, I have a natural right to a house that I pay other people to build for me.

As for your grazing example - keeping livestock isn't that simple. A farmer will have to almost always make improvements to the land to make it suitable for his herd ("sweat equity"). Beyond that, the simple act of allowing his animals to graze a piece of land improves it. Much of the land in the Piedmont has been turned from eroded nutrient deprived land into fertile farmland by grazing livestock.

 

As a pragmatist, I eschew the airy-fairy nostrums of the ideologically-indoctrinated, especially those who parrot the clap-trap of their media entertainers.

Rather, I look to actual, demonstrable, relative performance, and note that, amongst the nearly 200 extant paradigms, nations that practice forms of democratic rule, regulate capitalism, and establish and maintain social welfare institutions for their people are the most successful.

I also look to the quality of life achieved in the more prosperous, better-educated states. (Brownback's much-ballyhooed "Red State Model" affords a unique opportunity to observe that much-spouted dogma applied to the real world.)

http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/slideshows/the-10-poorest-states-in-the-union/3

The poorest states in the union are Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, and North Carolina. (Seven of the ten are amongst the worst educated.)

http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/slideshows/the-10-richest-states-in-the-union/11

The ten richest are New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Alaska, Virginia, Massachusetts, Utah, Colorado, Hawaii. (Of course, in Alaska and Hawaii, the high cost of living is a major factor. Seven of the ten are also America's best educated states.) ​

Within my performance-based preferential system, there are specific issues that I also note with respect to my personal notions as to which fall within the purview of the State. E.g., I generally regard the some politicians' predilection for intrusion into wombs more egregious than into wallets, and don't see the sense in bureaucratic crotch-inspectors issuing seals of approval whenever two adults wish to enter into a contract.

Most Americans are moderates:

... a clear majority of Americans are ideologically at the center or right of center. How do Democrats continue to win elections if so few Americans identify themselves as liberal? The answer may lie with moderates, which, as a voting bloc, are solidly Democratic ​

Nevertheless, the ideological spectrum is intriguing, and CROWDPAC is an excellent resource for those interested.

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It isn't that easy of a question to answer and let me demonstate why it isn't an easy question. Whether you personally build the house or exchange your labor for it is irrelevant. It is the ownership of the land itself that is important. Do you have a "natural right of ownership to the land" upon which the house is built to begin with?

Is there "enough, and as good, left in common for others" in America? Is there the same amount of land available free to all people so that they can also, with the labor of their hands, build their own house? Is there enough land for both the nomad and the settler to live off of. Do the herds of wild buffalo still roam the paraires to provide food for the taking? Do the wild berries grow in the woods where we can harvest them without charge or infringement upon our Right of Survival.

Our government has divided up the land taking away nature from the person and we are denied the ability to live based upon natural law by our government's actions and the actions of individuals. There isn't enough free land for the individual to go out and homestead a piece of land and build a house based upon their Natural Right of Property leaving "enough, and as good" for those remaining in the "common" anymore.

Locke's arguments for the Natural Right of Property were based upon a bygone era where it was assumed that there would always be enough land for both the settler and the nomad. It was a time where a person could actually settle on a piece of land and with their own hands build a home free from any cost and when their doing so did not diminision the natural world. That time period no longer exists and the natural right of property has been violated by our government since it's creation.

So you ask if you have a "natural right of property" related to your home, as do I, but we have to understand that the caveat of "enough" and "as good" as must remain for all other people in society (i.e. the common) but that doesn't exist anymore and hasn't existed for perhaps 100 years or more.

That is the problem I face when I address the 'Natural (Inalienable) Right of Property" because I don't have an answer as to what we should do about it. As I recall about 1/2 of American households don't have their own homes and we cannot have an "Inalienable Right" if it infringes upon the Inalienable Rights of another Person. They have just as much right to their own homes as we do and, based upon "Natural Law" that cannot be obligated to purchase a home from someone else. They have to be able to acquire a home based upon free land and their own labor (either directly or by exchange).

I don't have the magic bullet to resolve this problem.

Once again we return to a caveat in the arguments related to the Natural (Inalienable) Right of Property.

Do the farmer and the rancher leave "enough, and as good left" free land for others to farm and ranch? Can I go out today and find 40 acres of free land that I can farm or raise cattle on? If not then the farmers and ranchers are violating the Natural (Inalienable) Right of Property" that belongs to the rest of society.

Once agian this is a problem because no one has a Natural (Inalienable) Right of Property" unless everyone else has that identical Right of Property. Once again I don't have a magic bullet that resolves this problem we have in America today but we cannot deny that the problem exists.

Your question is very well intended but as I note there isn't a cut and dried answer to it. We can't simply ignore the caveats related to the Natural (Inalienable) Right of Property. "Enough, and as good as" remaining for all other people is a huge caveat that has been ignored by most.

http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm

 

Does anyone really care what my political philosophies are?

Including me?

 

Analogy:

The RMS Lusitania sank in only 18 minutes while the RMS Titantic took almost 3 hours to sink and we can arguably say the Titanic was the more successful of the two ships but both eventually sank.

While capitalism is more successful than other economic systems historically it is still "sinking" today as poverty is spreading under it. The percentage of those living in poverty is increasing as the real wages of workers are diminishing every year. The long held American Dream of the Middle Class is evaporating before our eyes as incomes are polarizing into very high incomes and very low incomes with a consistant decline in the number of middle income jobs that provided the rungs in the ladder of financial growth for the individual.

We need to patch the holes in the side of the ship before it sinks.............

 

Well stated. If I might extend your analogy, a ship of state in such peril demands jettisoning excess baggage (that does not include the crew,) manning the pumps, and patching the leaks in addition to the inevitable need to periodically scrape off the inevitable accretion of barnacles, but such efforts are preferable to panicking, abandoning ship, and hoping to find a haven somewhere beyond the horizon whist so much at sea.

Without a viable alternative in sight, restoring the vessel that has proved so seaworthy for so long is the prudent course.

 

Our Founding Fathers already told us what to do with it.

 

I'm a 90% Libertarian.

I know, it only means something to me.

At any rate, I believe the Constitution of the US to be one one of the
most important documents every written.

 

Will you share it with us?

 

Sorry I was a little late to the party, but I would like to expand your arguments just a bit.

Let us take a magic wand and fully grant the Natural Right of Property. I can understand the concept when it comes to renewable use of the Property. It becomes considerably less clear when I exploit the resources that exist on or under the land's surface.

The obvious example would be mining. If I assert Natural Right, then I could enter unoccupied land, dig it, take the resources to my gain, then walk away with no responsibility to restore the land to support some other use. Clear cut logging would be another example. There seems to a lack of accountability granted to land use implied or an assumption that land is a disposable resource. Such examples could persuade me that society, represented by their Government, does have a compelling interest in land use and therefore has the right and obligation to apportion and regulate property on behalf of the General Wefare.

 

80-90% Libertarian.
10-20% Conservative
0% Liberal

Being Liberal is so stupid.

 

having liberal and libertarian mean different things in a language makes it stupid.

 

I would highly recommend you re-read John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter V, that addresses the "natural right of property" again because in both cases you cite it would violate the "natural (inalienable) rights of the common" related to the land and natural resources.

http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm

If the purpose of government, as the Declaration of Independence establishes, is to protect our (natural) inalienable rights then the government would prohibit the destruction and/or despoiling of nature as that violates the "rights of the common" according to Locke's arguments. Many seem to not understand that the "natural (inalienable) right of property" demands a very high level of environmental protection far greater than what we have in the United States.

 

How so? They don't mean the same thing. Libertarian means in favor
of Liberty while Liberal doesn't.

 

Exactly, and that's why it's stupid. Look at the roots.

 

Here is one version of liberal:

 

Simply put, I support those who have opinions closest to mine. That can be Conservative or Liberal, or no one.

 

Yes it does.

Both words come from the same root, and both terms are related to liberty, and both ideologies support liberty - the difference is in their vision of how to best achieve the maximum level of liberty for society (with the former having a 'hands off' approach and effectively favouring 'every man for himself' and 'let those with the power keep the power', and the latter seeking to level the playing field of opportunity for everyone and providing a framework of legislation that prevents the liberty from being overriden by the interests of monopolies and cartels, and those who would seek to destroy the liberty of others).

 

The roots of words mean little the farther they move from the
original source. However, in this case one can go back very far
and they are different.