ah, the trial and tribulations of Kropotkin has
prevented me from posting for about a week…
I had dental problems… an infected tooth, back molar…
and finally, after getting that problem child pulled, it’s taken
me a few days to recover and here I am…
I had forgotten how painful an infected tooth was…
yikes… anyway, it gave me time to think while I was
suffering in pain…
it about the question of what do people stand for…
which is another way to think of identity… most people don’t
think about themselves in terms of identity in regards to a
I am a father, or a worker or a white person, a gay person,
or whatever means of identification that people identify as …
but people don’t identify in terms of a principle, of justice
or freedom or security or artistic… that would usually be
a secondary identification of people… we don’t identify
in terms of principles… and therein lies the problem
for liberals/democrats… we do stand for principles,
but we don’t make that very clear… being liberal means
I stand for a principle… but we don’t always make clear
the principle that liberalism is base upon…and that
principle that is the bottom-line base of liberalism is
Justice… the conservative bottom line principle is
freedom…but that in reality means freedom for me,
not for thee… look at the basic freedoms that the right
has taken away… abortions, freedom to move without
hinderance from ICE… they are at the NAZI point of asking
for papers… to prove one is a citzen… try to go to an
airport and have no papers… good luck with that one…
But Kropotkin, we are trying to protect ourselves…
but does protecting oneself mean to deprive others of their
rights? Why does protecting you mean others have to
show their papers and jump through the hoops of
modern day existence? and based on what? Skin color
or religion or our nationality? is freedom dependent on
having the right beliefs, or the right skin color or
the right nationality? that type of selective freedom
isn’t freedom at all…to be free means to be free
regardless of who we are or who we pray to or who
we love… for freedom to work it must be unconditional…
applied to thee as well as me… Hold that thought in mind…
to be applied to both me and thee, that is no longer about
freedom but is about the liberal identity, which is Justice…
the entire right wing thought process is to turn America
into a police state because that is how we will be safe…
but in the process of becoming safe, we are no longer
engaged in freedom… and the right doesn’t understand that…
that claim to be for freedom, but easily accepts the police
state because of the false delusion that it will make us
safe…listen to politicians and virtually every program
they offer/suggest, is another attempt to limit freedom
and bring us one step closer to a total police state…
and the right has no problem with that… because they
fixate on being safe over the classical theory of conservatism
which is freedom… but that is point that we no longer
have classical conservatism… for MAGA is not about
the concerns of classical conservativism…for example,
the classical conservative was about small government and
low to no taxes… but IQ45 has increased the total national
debt by 39% adding about 7.8 trillion dollars… and that is
his first term… we still haven’t had the reckoning of his current
term… and where has the vast majority of the debt from this
second administration come from? the massive increase in
the defense sector… this is a typical right wing action because
one of their main principles is safety… and increasing the defense
budget is a response to protecting ourselves… but Kropotkin,
it’s a dangerous world out there… and where is the evidence
that increasing the military budget does actually protect us?
would a massive increase of the military budget have
protected us from say 9/11?
Ok, let us return to the liberal response. if we spend our money
on the military and other security measures, then our people,
the ones the military is supposed to protect is now suffering…
as evidence that the spending on programs helping people
has been reduced or even ended to provide funds for the
military, then what are we actually protecting if our people,
as they clearly are, lack the basic necessities of life…
and example of this is the massive reduction in the Social
Security benefits, both in SS and in Medicare, and funding
programs to benefit the elderly or in cutting benefits for
children’s programs like headstart or WIC programs?
what is the point of protecting ‘‘THE PEOPLE’’
if the people are made to suffer from cuts that negatively
impact their lives? if we are damaging people’s lives,
then what is the point of protecting them if they are suffering?
if we aren’t improving their lives, then what is the point of
protecting them? What exactly are we protecting if we
are harming millions of Americans? Who exactly are we
protecting if we cut billions of dollars necessary for people
to survive and live?
No, there is virtually no defense for the GOP/MAGA
increasing the military budget if we are going to
negatively impact millions of people with budget cuts
that prevent them from living productive lives?
How can we justify protecting people if we damage
their lives in doing so?
that is the negative conservative belief…
because that is the nature of conservativism…
it is not positive nor is it uplifting nor is it affirmative…
people are born bad and they are unable to change their
‘‘spots’’ and we need prisons more than schools…
that is all negative and not positive in any way, shape or
form… and that is the conservative mindset…
and all of this stems from the fact that conservatives/right wing
never actually evaluates what they actually stand for…
so, why is this in the philosophy section and not in the
society/government thread? Because at its heart, we
are discussing values, and which values should we engage
with and why? I hold that conservatives’ values such as their
pretending to hold onto freedom as the value, which is really
not their main value, as I have pointed out, it is safety
and security… and I hold that these are the wrong values
to hold… and the liberal response in the next post…
Kropotkin
