Dog Whistle Politics

Dog Whistle Politics


The modern meaning of dog whistle:

noun

noun: dog whistle; plural noun: dog whistles

• a high-pitched whistle used to train dogs, typically having a sound inaudible to humans.
• a subtly aimed political message which is intended for, and can only be understood by, a particular group.

"dog-whistle issues such as immigration and crime"

So what am I on about?  US politics, the Trump used this to call in the Russian to find Hillery's emails. So the Trump does not realize that there were and are people who listen to what he says, and try to help. We see the same in Canada and Trudeau's efforts to pacify the Indians.

Who is doing our thinking for us? Are we allowing ourselves to be fooled by fast talking peoples who have their best interests at their heart. Are they out to fleece the taxpayer? When we see the oil line purchase, yes. The Oil Line guys say this is a bad investment, Heavy Alberta Crude is just not bringing the dollars. There is no money to be made with this line, if we do get it built. And Trudeau buys the line, and we taxpayers will pay. It might eventually make money or not, but we are on the hook for the cost now. We are being fleeced. So do we respect Trudeau? Should we believe Trudeau?

Should we care what he says?

The earth is overpopulated, if we use Co2 as a guide. So why are we letting more people into Canada? Are we letting the Liberalism drive our thinking to non-rational places? Is the Liberal ideology beyond reality, beyond what is practical?

Who is doing our thinking for us? And who is responsible if they are wrong?

When we see the light on a topic, concept, and know that we are right, we must persist. It is easy to see this on the internet. Some will insist that black is white, and refuse all argument, all discussion, all evidence, just like the religious insist that gods are real, or insist that their god is real. Religions are the original coping mechanisms, systematized as a group delusion. It is pointless, unless to clarify your own thinking about a subject. All we can do is clarify our own thinking and arguments. It is futile to think we can change others much. We may occasionally, but it is the exception.   

Anti-Semitic ?

Anti-Semitic, what does that really mean?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGg1o2vk6G8

This is all "if you are not with us, you are against us" dipole statements. The vast majority of people do not give a damn. It is just an irrelevant concept. It is miss-leading to cage the question as a dipole; it is actually the two corners of a wide field, with many layers of concern.

The Jews are not innocent either. They invaded the Middle-east from Africa. Later they invaded again after WWii, and took land from the Palestinians. The reality is the Jews are not blameless, but an invasive culture who demand their own way. They deserve all the distrust, dislike, anomisty they get. They do not deserve violence except in return of violence. Defense is always permitted.

We need to separate hatred, the internal feeling from violence, the outward expression of that hate. No one can impose a feeling on others, it just cannot be done, try as you like. The politicians can regulate all they like, but it is impossible. They can however make appeals reason, and if their reasons are sound, influence our decisions.  Understand that hatred is often earned through past actions, and kept alive in the present, often by actions.

Trump is polarizing figure, those that hate Trump and those that hate "those who hate Trump". Note that I have used the negatives here; Not all those that support Trump hate those who oppose Trump. Some do not feel that strongly either way. We are a warring species. We need to learn to accept this and deal accordingly, while understanding this. The Europeans of the 19 Century, (+/-) took these land from the Natives; and allowed some of the natives to live. Those have grown into resentment, and we live with that today in Canada.

Others owned slaves; some still do today, and others still would like to. That is the history of the US that they live with, along with a military/gun industry, that is the biggest in the world, and it is a major employer, and political powerful. The US generates strong feelings intentionally, so they are welcome to all the troubles that brings. No one is willing to tone down the rhetoric. It is all aimed at raising passions, not understanding. Understanding requires admitting your part in any conflict, and seeing it from the other side.There is too little tolerance, understanding, and too much physical provocation and action today.

Overpopulation; not enough space between people, or groups is a major contributor to the problem. People keep doing things that we do not like, and the resentment raises. Armament is not the long term solution, that is escalation of the problem, of the risk of Violante. Understand the real causes; inequality, resentment for real and perceived slights, abuse, historical wrongs, etcetera, on both sides, and learning to live with reality, without forcing change onto the other group is a required skill. That skill is lacking in the US today.

What is Important?

Perhaps that is a question we should answer each morning, shortly after we get up. Perhaps my serenity. So why am I allowing anything disrupt my serenity today? I am surrounded by idiots, begots, those who live in group delusions, with collective coping mechanisms, those who have their own agendas, mainly to separate me from my money, without regard to my needs or values. I am reminded of Marcus Aurelius 2.1 Today I will meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. I cannot us his list; the people do not owe me anything, and their attitude must be me first always, just to survive.

I have been with wife's family for a few days, and my serenity is the most important thing to me today. I can understand why we often see groups together, but each on their own cell phones in restaurants. It is the most peaceful way to be together. There is the parasite, the interrupter, the busy body, the perfectionist, the accommodator, the outside, at one table, and no dispute going on. When it come to "who is going to look after Uncle's (brothers) finances as we wait for him to die," there will be disputes and high emotions. None of this is important. It was all being taken care of before, correctly but not exactly legally before. It is illegal for anyone other than Paul to use Paul's debit card to pay Paul's expenses; Oh well. Now it will be all legal. Four days of my life, 1600 Km, with all the travel expenses for that.

So there are those people who hold that Andrew Wakefield was wrong at pointing out that MMP and autism have a link in data. What he found was actually the year to year increase in the frequency of autism; and the same time a year to year increase in frequency of MMP vaccination in the mid 80's in one area in Scotland, not causation, but he was using only 19 autistic children data points. He also found something like75 percent of the mothers were vegetarian, but nobody cares about that, yet that is significant. Oh well, so much for Experimental Design.

Perhaps we all need a coping mechanism, like religion is for so many, providing consolation and comfort...too keep us busy, in our idle time. Serenity would be almost automatic, thinking about a pleasant time and place, where the vicissitudes of life are not present.

Negative Visualization, as Irvine referred to the Stoic process of thinking about the worst that can happen, and making peace with that, can be a release. Even Buddha seems to be doing over statement in "life is suffering", rather than the rational "life contains suffering"; although, in Buddhas time, life was often brutish, harsh and short. Oh well. Practice life without x is a exercise in acceptance, and in change, impermanence. Practice life without much food is a diet, practice life without a phone is quite time, or not if with people. A phone "addiction like" behavior is one way to avoid engaging with those we are with; perhaps that lack of engagement is a way of avoiding topics, politics, religion, gardening... When we live next door to an aggressive, loud, ignorant arrogant elephant that wants it his way... what can one do when we live in such a zoo...




   

So what is right?

The French Quebec leader that says that a crucifix is not a religious symbol. Catholic Priest that says there are no Catholic LGBT, like these things are mutually exclusive; perhaps they are.

So is it possible to create a universal ethical standard, something like the UN Charter of Human Rights? The short answer is no, because the UN Human Rights charter is all inclusive, and does not eliminate things that are not rights like false belief. It allows indoctrination of people, and youths with false/untrue statements/concepts that are wrong/false/opinion.

It turns out the primary virtue must be prudence to allow for sorting of statements, evidence based verse opinion based. To add to the difficulty, all prudence is based on existing knowledge. So there is a problem if/when the existing knowledge is wrong or does not allow questioning of traditional beliefs.

So in an overpopulated world as we have become in the last 50-60 years, what is truth?  Many people do not accept this reality, and the impact recognizing this has on one, and one's outlook on life and the future. We see things like Harper yapping on about limits when the planet as we know it is doomed due to free carbon dioxide. Doomed, I say. The earth carbon dioxide level will keep on rising if we shut off half of the fossil fuel... due to the 7.7b people. We people produce about the same amount of Co2 as we produce in burning 500 liters fossil fuels. Well not quite but close. The only solution is to reduce the population in the future... If we start now, with a one child policy world wide... perhaps humans can survive. If we carry on, well the economic engine keeps driving us, we are beyond anything the governments are willing to do now.

To little to late. We are doomed. It does not matter now how fast we try to paddle, we will go over the falls... unless something happens, and that might be worse but save us. Nuclear war, epidemic, major war, something, asteroid strike, eruption of Yosemite Sam, crop failure...something.  

Thankgiving

Reflection on the ways of the past is all fine, but reality is now. Society, life has changed. Those things are gone. 
https://newrepublic.com/article/147276/death-civility-digital-age

Those are the symptoms. We need to understand things like:

Atmosphere carbon dioxide level rise, and its' effects.

Overpopulation based on various supply limits; Co2, food, water, energy, shelter...

The effect of modern life on humans and their psyche.

Climate change, the jet stream warble, severe weather, heat.

Potential of wars, diseases, extreme weather events

Geological events....

So we need to recognize that we puny organisms adapted to life on this spinning rock, and that our destruction is assured, the question is just one of timing.

So perhaps we need to learn to live without a mind blanking coping mechanism, or with a mind blanking coping method if that makes us feel better. 

The solution could be: https://modernstoicism.com/stoicisms-ancient-and-modern-by-tony-a-a-long/ 

Or we could all just be thankful for what we got, and bury our head in our hands, and use a handy coping mechanism to get by with. 

Foundation of Virtue

“Prudence [practical wisdom] is the knowledge of things which are good, or bad, or neither good nor bad. … Justice is a habit of the mind which attributes its proper dignity to everything, preserving a due regard to the general welfare. … Fortitude [courage] is a deliberate encountering of danger and enduring of labour. … Temperance is the form and well-regulated dominion of reason over lust and other improper affections of the mind.” (On Invention II.54)

Well what am I on about today?

I have been reading ethics for a bit now, and all I can say is that everybody has an opinion, and these opinions seem to say that it is right to do good, wrong to do evil, and there is no clear definition of either. Ethics are always subjective often adaptive, that is change over time and conditions of life, traditions, cultures and ethnic groups. As soon as one accepts one ethic precept, a bunch of more statements can be made by logical extension, defining what should and should not be done. So how can one say existentialism is better than virtue ethics?

Prudence, that is the ability to judge which is better, is a foundation virtue, yet is the result of what we believe, which is the foundation for prudence. The whole fudging thing is circular logic, so it should be based on what? Iteration, testing, and picking the most likely to be true statements. So the best argument for no god becomes bone cancer, and the best argument for a god becomes the comfort and consolation one can obtain from a group delusion. So what is the point?

I write because I have something to say without interruption, and criticism, well until it is published anyway. In the end it does not matter, no one with the power to do anything is listening to the Co2 danger, the political danger, climate change, religion bullfeathers, or anything else much. In the end I will just die anyway, and nobody will care too much. Some will be relieved. I cannot blame them; I do not care for their religion; they do not care to be told that they are wrong, and so it goes.

So the existentialist thinks that we should not do anything that has the potential of shorting our lives. So this implies no drinking, drugs, gambling, proper diet and exercise, stay out of heavy traffic, late night driving, pay attention to rules of the road, avoid unhealthy situations and areas, chemicals, and the like. The virtue ethic suggest that we need to do good things only, and avoid evil things. So what is the difference? How we come to the same conclusion. But existentialism is much clearer, more direct of reasoning. Protect the asset type prudence. Yet there are all those who do not; are they wrong, or do they just value pleasure more than those who think sober life has value?

So what about when a practical situation does is not adequately addressed by theory? Somethings cannot be taught because we do not understand the problem. So what is virtue really?

Behavior showing high moral standards, but what are high moral standards? That depends on you culture, time, on your beliefs, and that just depends on, well where and when you were dropped on this planet. Oh really?