"Thelemites for Trump" Facebook page
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Your opinion on this topic doesn't count for much to me, personally. As you said, you wouldn't even care if Trump were a homophobic racist mass-murderer.
"Anger motivated"
Regardless, my anger serves my will."You? Name calling."
Calling Trump a fascist isn't name calling.
"I'm not talking about the politics of Trump, I'm talking about the mindset of those who want to politicize (you included)."
This is a political thread about Trump.
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Among the first posts in this thread is this post by oldfriend56. This is the OP (the previous posts just like this, small bits of English, which eventually lead us to this post, the hidden OP:
"James Wasserman is big on Trump, not sure if he is behind the group though, but appears likely.
I don't get it.
What am I missing?"
So this is not a political thread, it's under the General Discussion heading, it's a question about why people do or support such things. That's the original question. Politics has to get involved when talking about people's politics, but politicizing isn't required. In fact, my main political argument is intended to favor less politicizing in general. Don't turn my water cooler moments into a political issue, don't turn my neighbor's hunger into a political issue, don't turn my personal health choices into a political issue, don't turn my recreation choices into a political issue, don't make me pay for your political issues. I've learned from my mistakes, and so long as I am hurting no one, I can continue to make discoveries of all kinds thank you - and I won't ask you to pay for it.
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People have a right to politicize as they will.
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@Takamba said
"Can you counter my rational arguments without appeals to emotion and instead provide solid rationale?"
To be fair though, Takamba, I am not sure you are presenting much of an argument in the rational deductive sense as you are just stating your opinion. At least to me. I disagree with your interpretation of Liber OZ, but only for me as I have my own intimate relationship with Thelema and Liber AL, and there is no need to combat our viewpoints unless we want to arrive at some shared objective truth.
" Specifically to the ends of "what is best for the entire collective.""
Collaboration is what is best for the collective, obviously. Non zero sum, mutual resolution is ALWAYS, without fail, great for the collective. With collaboration, society has the technical ability to give each and every single individual billionaire access to wealth.
Human politics stands in the way of collaboration.
Crowley had little insight into the coming technological breakthroughs of the 20th and 21st century.
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Also, data is very helpful.
There is a reason why "non-violent" solutions work. It's not that it produces "cuddly" feelings, it is purely psychological and mathematical.
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2014-06-16/drop-your-weapon
Violent solutions produce more problems than they seek to resolve. That's not even philosophy, it is just the data, a very real game theory.
The US president has a very powerful position in that he sets the tone of the national discussion. This is where I believe Obama was incredible, and Trump harmful, independent of any policies or decisions. Follow the discussion...
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@ldfriend56 said
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@Takamba said
"Specifically to the ends of "what is best for the entire collective.""Collaboration is what is best for the collective, obviously. Non zero sum, mutual resolution is ALWAYS, without fail, great for the collective. With collaboration, society has the technical ability to give each and every single individual billionaire access to wealth.
Human politics stands in the way of collaboration.
Crowley had little insight into the coming technological breakthroughs of the 20th and 21st century."
Mutual resolution? As in "we both agree?" I'm not sure that isn't the end goal and not a means. How to achieve the goal of mutual resolution? As brothers blah blah blah. Want an orange? I need to lighten this pack.
Without fail? Only a true orbit is without fail. I like that ambition but I see that this world is confusing collaboration with pity. I despise pity. It puts one above the other. I'm not saying to a man don't be in the spirit of kindness for life. I'm not saying to a man don't share your joy and leaping laughter. I'm not saying to a man, even such as this dreadful thing: don't sell out and paint what they tell you to paint. I'm saying to the collective that it has all the right to that but no right to thwart those rights. And I will defend these ideals to my death.
Crowley, in his fiction, wrote of a semi-theocratic society of initiates who selected through their means the Leader. He was simply put, a select adept. Locally the people controlled their own forms of self-governing operations. The answers to concepts we now call "lawsuits" seemed to be the main function of this "select adept."
Anyway. The entire thing needs to change, not the candidate selected, not the programs we adopt to feed the needy, not even the more desirable programs of teaching and empowering the needy will do the trick (well, actually, it will do the trick of tumbling the current model toward a higher more resolute model in line with Thelemic thought). Democracy didn't come out of the aeon of Osiris overnight. I'm in no hurry. Surely it will not hurt me, the authentic being, but it will inflict something on oldfriend56 and also on Takamba because we're in the midst of it. The entire thing is going to change.
Otherwise I agree that the genius of collaboration is what it becomes. Unfortunately, as I said, I believe collaboration (as defined by most) has become confused with other things that although they look nice, and kind, and caring, create more drag than relief. Here, have an EBT card and you better smile when you hand it to the clerk.
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"Unfortunately, as I said, I believe collaboration (as defined by most) has become confused with other things that although they look nice, and kind, and caring, create more drag than relief."
What specific "things" do you believe create more drag than relief?
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
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"Unfortunately, as I said, I believe collaboration (as defined by most) has become confused with other things that although they look nice, and kind, and caring, create more drag than relief."What specific "things" do you believe create more drag than relief?"
Food stamps.
Food stamps are a supplemental program designed to help both farmers and families. Farmers are helped by the increasing amount of subsidy dollars they receive from our taxes as part of the subsidy/supplement program run by the department of agriculture called "Food Stamps." The Department of Agriculture runs the subsidy program in such a way that as a result (and this is not really the forum for it, so I'll let you do some research on it) produces more waste farming than productive farming. That's not a drag you think? For the families: make $56 too much in one month via an actual income and you lose your benefits or have them cut down by $99 to a lower benefit number. Does that make sense? No, it makes drag.
Also there's the psychological toll. As a child of a mother who accepted food stamps, I know first hand the psychological stigma of food stamps. Maybe you don't. Maybe you do. Maybe you say "aw, that's jist in yer head, overcome that problem and be a man!" Well then, had you said that, I'd say then why not say that always. The need for food stamps? That's just a problem in yer head! No, you don't say that, you pick and choose your kindness. That's not balance also, that's drag.
The same goes to all the welfare programs so far. If you need them, you qualify, but it won't really be enough. If you somehow increase your own wealth just ever slightly too much, you lose all the welfare which then means you actually have even less than the welfare ever offered alone. So, what motive do you think you'll lean to?
Subsidized Art: The drag here is largely financial. There's not much a moral or substance issue. Art is great. Culture is important to preserve IF YOU'RE A DOGMATIST UNWILLING TO EVOLVE. But that's just my opining mind. I suppose there are a lot of reliefs among those arts, but I like a good fresco myself.
It causes a lot of emotional upheaval wherever I mention it, but I don't believe in vaccination. The government telling me that I must inject something into me? Well, let's leave that for the adepts to discuss when they become the ruling class; meanwhile, I'd rather the unruly class get there's and just leave me alone. It drags the species to keep propagating inferior genes. Again, opinion.
The public school system is intentionally designed to drag. There's a lot of material you can discover for yourself on this subject starting with the Presidential retreat with Calvin Coolidge and others to "reinvent the American education system." Thank you Henry Ford! You make fantastic factory workers! Much Compliance To You!
so on and so on. Pay my health bill you? Oh, only if I stop eating bacon? Forgetabouit
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That's an interesting hypothesis, but it's not born out by the evidence.
Studies repeatedly confirm that money spent on welfare, unemployment, and food stamps have between $1.50 to $1.75 return on investment, in terms of macro economic benefit.
Here's one done by Moody's
www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Stimulus-Impact-2008.pdf
The psychological affect of food stamps you allege?: zero evidence. Psychological effects of going hungry: much evidence.
(And yes, I personally experienced food neglect as a small child. My parents didn't want to accept charity, however, so we went hungry. It was not enobling)
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And, since anything can be criticized, it's important not to go down the illogical route of: x is flawed therefore we should be against x.
A best practices approach for people who are interested in a rational approach to solving issues like this is to to measure how much of an impact the flaws create, and put it in the context of the benefits, and compare to an alternative based on the same measures.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
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The psychological affect of food stamps you allege?: zero evidence. Psychological effects of going hungry: much evidence.
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(And yes, I personally experienced food neglect as a small child. My parents didn't want to accept charity, however, so we went hungry. It was not enobling)"Practicing that each thought with its opposite excercise, I see.
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And, in Trump news today:
13 people were indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States for the dark money flowing from Russian money launderers into US election ads designed to sow discord with propaganda.
By the way, in the 2016 campaign, the NRA funneled an estimated $70 million to Trump's campaign (hard to say exactly how much, because the NRA has been funding the dismantling of campaign finance laws that would let us know)--much of it from Russian arms dealers and Putin-loyalist money launderers/government officials.
Sounds like the work of Choronzon and the Black Brothers to me. Definitely not the actions of someone who is trying to help people live in harmony with their true wills.
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@Takamba said
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
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The psychological affect of food stamps you allege?: zero evidence. Psychological effects of going hungry: much evidence.
""
(And yes, I personally experienced food neglect as a small child. My parents didn't want to accept charity, however, so we went hungry. It was not enobling)"Practicing that each thought with its opposite excercise, I see."
Got me! Or you didn't.
My anecdote is not societal evidence of the psychological effects of food stamps.
It's purpose is to forestall your Republican talking memo penchant for talking about liberals as mommy loving softies (who are also spoiled rich kids, I'm guessing).
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(I thought you were looking for rational discussion)
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
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My anecdote is not societal evidence of the psychological effects of food stamps.It's purpose is to forestall your Republican talking memo penchant for talking about liberals as mommy loving softies (who are also spoiled rich kids, I'm guessing)."
Got you again. Not a Republican. Don't write memos. Never a one. I talk about ideas, ideals I leave for others. I don't talk about people. Please cite me.
This is the nature of rational discourse. I'm not emotionally upset about this, are you?
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@Takamba said
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Mutual resolution? "
Let's do it.
"As in "we both agree?" "
yes!
"I'm not sure that isn't the end goal and not a means. "
it's both the end goal (it is the only rational, functional, harmonious, goal that would ever work) and the means (by focusing on where the foundations of "agreement" already exist through more collaborative exchanges, it becomes much easier to "see what each other means")
"How to achieve the goal of mutual resolution?"
I believe a good way to start is by understanding, or at least seeing, what my "opponent" would consider a resolution, and being clear on what you would consider a resolution. Building a shared language of what the "resolution" means to all parties provides a foundation for mutual resolution (from my experience)
"As brothers blah blah blah."
YES! Consider - say you have a truth, something mutually true (like science, for example) and I have the falsity...If I am rational, would I not greet your truth once I saw the mistake in my own calculus? If you improve my calculus or I improve yours through the "fighting as brothers" (my interpretation is this is just dialectic, debate, argumentation) that is a mutually resolving yet ideologically violent sport.
"Want an orange? I need to lighten this pack."
Imagine that famous Thelemic thought experiment (which to me never provided any satisfactory answers from known Thelemites) being applied to ideas exchanged, battled, conflicted, contradicted, yet (eventually) resolving, instead of some thought experiment over battling who gets to eat some kind of snack or food.
(lol, what is it with Thelemites and eating food? so much controversy over lunch
)"Without fail? Only a true orbit is without fail. "
I win every time I lose something that I thought was true, but was just my own delusion.
Collectively, we are in a state of almost perfect agreement all the time, there is only a very small fraction of disagreement between all of us, and those fine details can all be resolved, in principle. (My interpretation is this is what Nuit brings, an "objective" reality of all of the stars, a certainty, not a delusion)
"I like that ambition but I see that this world is confusing collaboration with pity."
Well sure, modern global civilization confuses just about everything. I'm certainly not describing what I think the world is, just what I believe it will become through a historical process that I find Liber Al remarkably predestinate.
I believe, practically speaking, much of this confusion is because of language - we really dont know what each other is talking about, even if we agree on the language shared. We are all confusing the opposites in our exchanges collectively speaking.
"I despise pity."
okay. that sounds familiar
" It puts one above the other. "
To me, I believe what you mean here is the distinction between what I consider the signature of the old aeon and the signature of the new aeon.
The old aeon is any form of win/lose psychology (which evolves into win lose problem solving). Now the win lose could be " I will lose so you can win" which is the message of Christianity, or it could be "I will win and you will lose" which is pure patriarchal social problem solving.
so "one above the other" is a form of that patriarchal win lose psychology.
The new aeon (by my interpretation) is the emergence of collective or collaborative intelligence, "win win" psychology.
Globally speaking, it is the only psychology that will work. If humanity for some reason can't upgrade, we are probably fucked
"I'm not saying to a man don't be in the spirit of kindness for life. I'm not saying to a man don't share your joy and leaping laughter. I'm not saying to a man, even such as this dreadful thing: don't sell out and paint what they tell you to paint. I'm saying to the collective that it has all the right to that but no right to thwart those rights. And I will defend these ideals to my death."
Okay, that's cool. I think maybe you just need to be funnier with it then
if you would defend it to your death, then you are adopting the win lose psychology of the old aeon, no? Is that not you suggesting that you would lose to protect the win for others?
I'm just focusing on your language...the words you choose to use to express your POV, so as to understand the underlying meaning so we can find mutual resolution.
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Crowley, in his fiction, wrote of a semi-theocratic society of initiates who selected through their means the Leader. He was simply put, a select adept. Locally the people controlled their own forms of self-governing operations. The answers to concepts we now call "lawsuits" seemed to be the main function of this "select adept.""
I should check that out
havent read crowley's fiction"Anyway. The entire thing needs to change, not the candidate selected, not the programs we adopt to feed the needy, not even the more desirable programs of teaching and empowering the needy will do the trick (well, actually, it will do the trick of tumbling the current model toward a higher more resolute model in line with Thelemic thought). Democracy didn't come out of the aeon of Osiris overnight. I'm in no hurry. Surely it will not hurt me, the authentic being, but it will inflict something on oldfriend56 and also on Takamba because we're in the midst of it. The entire thing is going to change."
I'm feeling some mutual resolution with you here on this one amigo.
" Otherwise I agree that the genius of collaboration is what it becomes. Unfortunately, as I said, I believe collaboration (as defined by most) has become confused with other things that although they look nice, and kind, and caring, create more drag than relief. Here, have an EBT card and you better smile when you hand it to the clerk."
yeah, we got lots of work to do
that's what we kinda signed up for on this path, no?
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@Takamba said
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Got you again. Not a Republican. "Okay, I'll take that at face value. But to fair, if you believe some of your language, you are introducing more libertarian ideals into this convo, somewhat baiting the convo with language kind of pigeonholing whatever everyone else who isn't a republican or libertarian is, especially those who would never vote republican, many of them likely democrats
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@ldfriend56 said
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@Takamba said
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Got you again. Not a Republican. "Okay, I'll take that at face value. But to fair, if you believe some of your language, you are introducing more libertarian ideals into this convo, somewhat baiting the convo with language kind of pigeonholing whatever everyone else who isn't a republican or libertarian is, especially those who would never vote republican, many of them likely democrats
"I disagree and I doubt you are going to accept this. You are doing the pigeonholing. You are among those crying out against the labels on people (labels largely of your own manufacture). I'm not a republican, I'm not a conservative, I'm not a liberal, I'm not a label. I'm, as fare as you can see, a collection of behaviors and ideas. I've been "pigeonholing" (if I must) ideas and behaviors, not people. You are "pigeonholing" so much more. Motherloving is not a type of people or a liberal ideal or sole propriety property of anyone, it's mammalian. it's right above the lizard (hisss hisss) and beneath the language/emotion portions of the human brain. Mother cuddled wants. Mother cuddled sits. Mother cuddled is spoon fed in the long run of life. A great advancement to society that!!
Once you get past these emotional flames you encounter when you read someone else's words, instead of wanting to react from that emotion (of course filtered through intelligence and prudence and civility because you don't want any witnesses to hate you and not support you), then you'll see what I am saying. Until then, you seem to be fabricating me as saying something someone else might have once said to you. I don't know. You aren't describing me.
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oh takamba, am a bit disappointed with this last response. what label did I call you? read the words on the page, not the words in your mind. I said you introduced ideas into the discussion and made no claim as to "who you are", applied no label to you, after all, you brought it up by saying you were not a Republican.
I get it, you're a mystery, like everyone else - but you also missed my post to you at the end of page 4.
How does Takamba respond to opportunities for collaboration or consensus? That's what really defines you "in the body of Nuit" if I might be a bit cryptic and poetic. Everybody will get the Takamba they deserve, but if you isolate yourself...no one will ever get you
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@ldfriend56 said
"oh takamba, am a bit disappointed with this last response. what label did I call you? read the words on the page, not the words in your mind. I said you introduced ideas into the discussion and made no claim as to "who you are", applied no label to you, after all, you brought it up by saying you were not a Republican.
I get it, you're a mystery, like everyone else - but you also missed my post to you at the end of page 4.
How does Takamba respond to opportunities for collaboration or consensus? That's what really defines you "in the body of Nuit" if I might be a bit cryptic and poetic. Everybody will get the Takamba they deserve, but if you isolate yourself...no one will ever get you
"Ah, the trouble has been identified! You are compartmentalizing.
- I'm not defending against you calling me anything. You can call me anything you like, it won't ultimately matter in the grand scheme of things, nor much to me. You did call me a Republican, by inference in a paragraph directed specifically too me. 2) This indicates you are not keeping the entire conversation in context, you are isolating bits and pieces as if attacking some one bit or piece with faulty or emotional based arguments would make my entire premise crumble. This is also unfortunate because it keeps you perceiving me inaccurately. You aren't, potentially, applying anything you may have learned about me in other discussions. If you had been cataloging all of our discussions (those with you and me involved in the threads), you should know that I've said I'm a libertarian. Now you deny applying a label to me. "[Y]our Republican talking" sounds like a penchant for labeling and pigeonholing, that which you accuse me of. What does that mean, that you would do the very very very thing you accuse me of? Is there a psychological word for that? A socialist opinion about that behavior? Or even a common word folks label people who preach (argue and talk over much) against the very thing they do? Is this something? (I can give you other examples of your labels all just in this thread alone, shall I?)
Now to answer your question about collaboration. I have only one word and this is all that is required. Voluntarily.