Proposal for a Fair & Dynamic Market-based Economy

bell_curve_natureThe following is consistent with the principles of capitalism. The economy must match the values of the community in which it resides. Those community values are defined in the Constitution both of the Federal Government and the State Government. The economy must also benefit the community as a whole; the existence of a stable market requires the existence of a stable government and a stable community. This proposal maintains focus on a market economy, rooted in the notion of a fair market.

If the cost of living in a given community is $30,000, the AVERAGE wage in that community would be $1,500,000. Want a raise?

There is a fallacy known widely as a free market; free markets do not and cannot exist; they are theoretical. Absent regulation, a market will tend to favor the powerful and diminish the weak; over time, this will destabilize both the community and the economy. If free markets were to exist, they would naturally approximate what I have outlined below. The degree to which an economy veers from what I have outlined below is the degree it differs from a theoretical free market. Contrary to popular belief, the approximation of a free market requires rather than abhors regulation. Put another way, Libertarianism is the opposite of a free market.

The primary goal in the following economic model is to produce a bell-curve distribution of wealth and income. If a free market were to exist, it would naturally produce this bell-curve distribution. Read more

The Seven Social Sins…

  1. stormy-night-1920Wealth without work.
  2. Pleasure without conscience.
  3. Knowledge without character.
  4. Commerce without morality.
  5. Science without humanity.
  6. Worship without sacrifice.
  7. Politics without principle.

Attributed to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

The Beginning of Life…

tVqNo1pDdutC5mdV9mqhUWfuAs for when “life” begins: The gametes that join to form the zygote that becomes the embryo are all alive. Life is no longer something that “begins.” It is something that is transferred from one living thing to another. You carry within your cells a genetic code that connects you with every other living thing on the planet—as well as every other dead thing that was once alive. Plants, trees, bacteria, human embryos, etc., they carry remnants of the same genetic markers that you do because you are all related by a common ancestor (or several). Life began on this planet over a billion years ago—it hasn’t begun since.”

— from an internet post by BreakerBaker (Andrew).

Invisibilia: The Problem with the Solution

Americans LOVE solutions. But are there problems we shouldn’t try to solve? Lulu visits a town in Belgium with a completely different approach to dealing with mental illness.

We. Will. Will we?

Screen-Shot-2014-10-13-at-12.11.02-1014x570We. Will. Will We? We will. Or, we will not. We is choice.

One can’t choose relationship without first choosing fidelity. Fidelity is the choice. Some aspects of fidelity and infidelity are natural. We is (or can be) transcendent of the so-called human condition. If two (or more) will it to be.

Why so-called? Because “human” applied to us is inexact. Humans are not static. Humans are in flux, evolving. Some are here; some there. Do not confuse a signifier for the signified. Language approximates; it is useful, but can mislead.

Am I free? Chosen will is a better term than free will. I can choose something even when I am seemingly forced to choose something else. This suggests possibility of a chosen will. Choice.

Choose.

On Bernie, Hillary, Purity and being in Community with We The People…

Ihand-god-worship-sun grew up with an ideologically pure belief system. For years, good/evil were pure concepts for me. Defined by this belief system, I could categorize anyone very quickly, and place them on a neatly defined spectrum.

That all came crashing down, as do many notions of purity, once the reality of the world beats us up a bit.

“Democracy” gets thrown about by all sides in American politics. But for all the accolades we heap upon it, there’s one thing we rarely talk about: Democracy is NOT pure. Pledging to be in community with We The People means pledging to be in community with people you not only dislike, but people you loathe. It means working with those same people in a system of give and take. It means a life-long commitment to compromise and persuasion.

Hillary Clinton is a politician. Of course she has an ideology. But she’s chosen to sacrifice a bit of her purity in order to work in this system. So, when she gets asked about things like gay marriage or even war, she analyzes her answer in terms of what is politically possible. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have an opinion about what is “right” or “wrong”, but she recognizes that few swords are worth falling on in such a system.

This, to me, is strength of its own kind. This is sacrifice of a particular nature.

You may hate this “system” of governance. But the irony is, absent electing a dictator, absent supporting an authoritarian model of government, there’s no substantive alternative to it.

I don’t “hold my nose” to vote for Hillary, even though my personal political opinions are well to the left of hers; I admire her for the hard work of placing herself in a viable position to help move this Country ever so slightly to the left. Because 3 degrees in the Left direction for the next 8 years is extremely valuable.

Meanwhile…I support Pramila Jayapal for Congress in the 7th. The real work of Revolution is built from the ground up; not the top down.

We The People: Persuasion, Not Revolution

crookedThe Tea Party on the Right and the Bernie Supporters on the Left frame the dysfunction of government this way:

“The Establishment is ignoring us!”

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way Democracy works. Democracy is, by definition, an averaging of political will. Push. Pull. You hope for two steps forward for every one step backward.

When enterprising politicians promise each side a utopian vision they simply can’t deliver (because math!), the very dysfunction that is decried is increased. The cure becomes the illness.

This is the nature of We The People. Persuasion. Not revolution.

On Purity and Politics…

old-wood-fence-inspiration-design-21-on-home-gallery-design-ideasInherent in “We The People” is a rejection of purity politics. Democracy requires compromise; otherwise it’s merely authoritarianism. The hard work of our lives is the slow work of convincing our neighbor. There is no other way. There is no short cut.
 
From one of my favorite philosophers, Tony Kushner:
 
“The principle of realpolitik is that politics isn’t an expression of your personal purity. Politics is about compromise. People need to understand that politics is very much a matter of the lesser of two evils, or three — however many evils, but you choose the least evil one.”
 
If you can’t be in community with those you consider to be evil, you most likely can’t be in community within a pluralist democracy. For always there will be disagreement; especially so amongst the purists.

The first challenge

The first challenge in a life lived honestly is to unravel our own mythology.vines

Tolerating the intolerant? No.

extreme-weather-climate-link-6-new-zealandTolerance of intolerance violates the law of noncontradiction.

It’s common to hear the intolerant attempt to paint the tolerant as hypocrites for not tolerating their intolerance. This is a cheap rhetorical trick that while it convinces nobody, can often confuse an argument. And there’s a strong logical foundation for intolerance of intolerance, especially for a philosophy of tolerance. It’s called the law of noncontradiction; simply stated, it says that you can’t have both “A” and “Not A” at the same time.

An Obstacle to Progress

tolstoix-undat-quer-dw-politik-frankfurt-archiv1I know that most men [people], including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” — Tolstoy

 

 

Invisibilia: How To Become Batman

Alix and Lulu examine the surprising effect our expectations can have on the people around us. Plus, the story of a blind man who says expectations have helped him see. Yes, see.

Definition of Intelligence

tumblr_m55842uPRO1qjwbbvo1_500Intelligence: being able to adapt our behavior to challenges.” –Neil Degrasse Tyson in Cosmos.

The Primacy of Trust

Ftrust_in_me_ii_by_isacg-d4owx38irst, trust. Absent trust, nothing. With trust, the possibility of everything.

Finding The I in We

The wisdom of age, acquired through experience, is not sufficient to match the wisdom of modernity, acquired through data.

This is the fundamental failure of conservatism. The only way out of this myopic view of the importance of one’s own experience is to love & respect others, recognizing that our experiences are limited to our circumstances.

If you rely primarily upon your own experiences to determine a course of action, you not only limit the freedom of others, you limit your own as well. You are an “n” of 1; much better to find knowledge synthesized from the many than from the one.

This is democracy; not the maintenance of self, but the finding of self through the love & respect of others. “We” the people is our core value.

Through a recognition of the value of we, you more fully realize the value of I.

The Opportunity & Danger of New Faith

Key & keyhole with lightOne identifying mark of young faith is the idea that those who possess it have found universal truth; that their ideas are equally applicable to and required of all.

This is as predictable in the newly blessed as it is dangerous to them.

The faith of such individuals can cause them to cling so tightly to their knowledge they fail to recognize it as a key. This key, depending on which side of the door they choose to use it in, can seal them into a small box, or open them to an ever expanding world of wonder.

Destroying Plato’s Theory of Forms

This short video succeeds in destroying Plato’s Theory of Forms, Christianity’s idea of the perfect man, and Mormonism’s Proclamation On The Family. All in under 5 minutes.

Rilke On The Nature of Two Distinct Beings

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other … – Rainer Maria Rilke

On Transcience by Sigmund Freud

Note from Timothy: As a child in the mormon religion, it was drilled into me that absent that faith, life would be meaningless. Again and again I was told that only the eternity of life, immortality, would imbue the existence of this life, my life, with importance. That only the hope of heaven could assuage the pain of death and loss. For many years, I accepted this notion, simply because everyone I knew and loved told me it was so.

Later, however, upon leaving my religion, I found a different formulation of value. I found that the lack of certainty in my own immortality gave increase to the value of each day, each new friend, and each new experience. I had found that my joy had been amplified.

As I look back upon that time, as I have fewer and fewer conversations with those who are still within the faith of my childhood, it strikes me that they have yet to allow themselves to mourn for the losses that have and will occur in their lives; and absent that mourning, they are unable to accept anew and fully the emergence of new beauty, new love, new truth. By refusing to let that which we love perish, we miss the opportunity to experience it as it is, in its true nature. And in this way, we lose the value of everything. Freud had found the same idea.

—–

Not long ago I went on a summer walk through a smiling countryside in the company of a taciturn friend and of a young but already famous poet. The poet admired the beauty of the scene around us but felt no joy in it. He was disturbed by the thought that all this beauty was fated to extinction, that it would vanish when winter came, like all human beauty and all the beauty and splendour that men have created or may create. All that he would otherwise have loved and admired seemed to him to be shorn of its worth by the transience which was its doom.

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The Chosen Interlocutor

Choose wisely who you debate. Some of their ideas will mingle with your own, and thus change you. Therefore, debate only with those people and those ideas that merit your respect even when you may not agree with them.