LesPhaith

@lesphaith.bsky.social

2158 Followers 1920 Following

“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.” ― Bertrand Russell Likes, Reposts -|+: context counts. #anti-demagoguery no matter the ideology

There can be no peace without justice, no justice without law and no meaningful law without a Court to decide what is just and lawful under any given circumstance. -Benjamin Berell Ferencz
Oh dear...she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot..
The personal, as everyone's so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here, it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide out from under with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous, marks the difference The only difference in their eyes between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it's just business, it's politics, it's the way of the world, it's a tough life, and that it's nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal. QUELLCRIST FALCONER Things I Should Have Learned by Now Volume II” Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
"What do I think about about guardians posessing (sic) women and children in common...?" About the same as I think of this. (info-graphic showing where blasphemy and apostasy laws are enforced) My good nature always assumes the pedantic, time wasters have better things to do than engage me. I should have qualified the ageless political animal Plato identified so accurately 2500 years ago as what "could have been written yesterday" (ones hopes for brevity are ill-suited to complex context) 2500 years ago it captured the fundamental flaw of 'Democracy'. It's participants. The systems aren't broken, We are. Almost any system applied with accountability, integrity and adequate education and good faith would function; adequately. The systems are just an extension of our own failings. Our desperate need for some- one else to clean up our messes while we go about the important business of living our lives. Plato like ourselves saw no way out of the trap of our own firmware. "Philosopher Kings" are just as ridiculous as benevolent anarchy The very first Philosophical Wishtocracy. But far from the last. It rears if fuzzy thinking many times in the preceding two millennium. It is doing quite well these days even, While Peter Thiel bankrolls "The Dark Enlightenment" an open call to techno-feudalism from the man who runs the biggest international private intelligence service in the world as just one of his fingers in everyone's pies, and than there is the rest of the Paypal Mafia... 3.5 billion people have limited or non existent access to sanitation or potable water. Close to a billion live in 'informal settlements' There are approximately 30-40 million slaves in the world right this second. Human Trafficking is as profitable as the drug trade. Kids in flip-flops made from used tires are smelting down your obsolete fondle slabs while heavy metals leach into them and the environment around them. Every civilization through history has been built on slavery a…
Being ignored by Elon will no doubt boost sentiment for the labour party, not to mention the capricious threats by Trump and his administration, of tariffs and other forms of retaliation. BTW Where are the charges for various Reform supporters and political extremists? Elon trolls and political credibility collapses, with the ready and eager complicity of the media. The circus goes on and we keep losing, The rich keep getting richer and we keep getting poorer. Being at the beck and call of the news cycle has destroyed the public forum and made thralls of us all. Political theater is hardly Shakespeare in the round. Where have the adults gone?
Another party won't fix what is wrong with us. Another system won't fix what is wrong with us. Determinism is the stupidest 'philosophy' ever. The reason humanity does what it does are the individual choices of animals whom evolution didn't evolve to be rational, sane creatures, but emotional ones. Reason implies and requires control over our biases, fears and preferences. When reason is defended and encouraged, our societies and cultures grow. When it isn't our societies fall apart. This isn't a destiny rooted in our genes and the crashing of asteroids billions of years ago. Four billion years of evolution didn't conspire with the Unworkable Infinite to create the perfect consumer and 3.5 billion people who dream of a toilet of their own. People did. and if we don't start owning up to it, we're gonna drown under it.
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
No one in this world, so far as I know and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly. Henry Louis Mencken “The Baltimore Evening Sun”. On September 18, 1926
Joe Walsh and his 'anarchy light' is what opened the door to Peter Theil's, Elon Musk's and the rest of the 'pay-pal mafia' and the İňţęяňąţıøňąl Кlęрţøсяąţś play for full fat anarchy, as sophisized by Curtis Yarvin's unreadable scree, attempting to package it for idiots. Law, order, reasonable regulation is what protects the freedom of the small and the foundation we built civilization (such as it is) upon. Predators don't build civilizations.
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. --Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
The history and prehistory of 'modern' humanity is built on 10,000 years of atrocities. The inability to appreciate just what a novel concept "Human Rights" are and what is required to retain them might indicate a repetition of how we came to acquire them to begin with becomes more and more certain. The 'Developing World' is watches with bated breath.
However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have bourne them. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation 1818
"..they’re going to destroy human trust. They’re going to move us into a world where you can’t tell truth from falsehood. You don’t know who to trust. Trust turns out to be one of the most important features of civilization, and we are now at great risk of destroying the links of trust that have made civilization possible." Daniel Clement Dennett III
Text: The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has chapters at more than 200 law schools and features student, lawyer, and faculty divisions; the lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys in ninety cities. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States. Image of some more well known members of The Federalist Society captioned "The Federalist Society would be a bad joke were it not such an unmitigated disgrace"
The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other. Bertrand Russell: Freedom, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen, Harcourt Brace, 1940
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) was born in 1694 The Sun King, Louis XIV, ruled for 72 years. From 1643-1715. Louis XV, ruled from 1715-1774 Voltaire never had any question who was "in control" Let's not slander a great mind with a pithy mis-attributed quote of a white supremacist and Holocaust denier who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. -H.L. Mencken
One ideology is generally as good as any other, applied with integrity, accountability, honest intent. and they are all equally evil lacking such parameters. After all they all purport to have the highest ethical standards, the most benign intentions (except of course, when they don't, a break in the hypocrisy is kind of nice) of making "the world" a better place for everyone. Granted some groups have vastly differing definitions of just what constitutes "The World" They are all equally convinced all the other ideologies are wrong. They all suffer the same fatal flaw. No matter how lofty their stated ideals their adherents seldom feel much compulsion to follow them. They are more like 'guidelines' you might say, that others should be following better than we do. The best thing about ideologies is that we give the hoi polloi their talking points without them having to actually understand much of anything. Which to be fair, suits them to a tee. I wonder what the world would look like if a majority of people were scurrying around doing shit without thinking?
Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls. Arthur Schopenhauer The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion
The right and the left have many areas where they are very much in agreement. The first that comes too mind is a equal loathing of anyone who dares to disagree with them in any instance. As they seldom wish to discuss why they disagree, they generally choose to characterise their adversaries beliefs (whether they know them or not) as proof of their obvious to all, lack of moral standing. This is a very inclusive stratagem which allows everyone to join in noting the targets many obvious defects of intellect and character and is generally applauded as a "damn fine time" and everyone gets to congratulate their friends on another fine defence of their various ideologies followed by the possibly of a bit of idle chit chat and further reinforcement of that magical bond between people who share ideologies even though they have few ideas they wish to share. They do enjoy reminding each other what great and fine folk they all are though and share messages of empowerment. It's all very touching. Or not. Repetition and the base dishonesty breeds a certain inherent insincerity. I guess it's an acquired taste. If by some chance you read this far. Thank you. I doubt there will be many. but hey once written, recycled endlessly. :) If by some chance you feel froggy, Just leap.