I can't answer that, because I'm not sad.
I thought your response was somewhat sad, because it reflected a fatalistic insistence on offering only a very limited set of options.
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ARE WE NOT MULES . . . WE ARE DEVO
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I thought your response was somewhat sad, because it reflected a fatalistic insistence on offering only a very limited set of options.
They are a lot of potential solutions. And many of their do offer chance to improve our lives.
Additional limiters are requirements of solution:
1. Few in number: Easy to explain, enable widespread mobilitization
2. System-wide effects: Able to fix wide variety of issue
3. Structural: Most important criteria for me
For example, COVID has proven FDA is corrupt to the core. So purge FDA and put new honest men. Not enough. How to stop corruption again?
We could either change existing system or try new significantly changed one. Thing is, I don't want to fight same battles again after 20-30 years, so change must be permament and not easily reversible. This limits options.
I also consider some institutions beyond salvation, i.e no reform can ever fix them. This applys to all government agencies, so rather disbanding them than reforming them.
4. Must be political: Since political system generates most problems, it must be fixed.
These criteria are significant limiters.
Political system can be improved by sunsetting all laws after 10 years, 90% of quorom for law passage and strict budget limits. It would cleanse significant part of legislation for special interests and stop ever-expanding government.
Horewer, ethical anarchism is simpler and more permanent solution. It's harder to centralize power, better protection against abuse and has more good laws.
@Keith Martin, you are very good thinker. I learned much from you. Your hierarchy solution is rather good. But how will your idea be protected against it's removal or abuse?
Excellent example. From my perspective, the only solution is to remove government entirely from the health care system. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the Atlanta GA newspapers ran every-five-years-or-so exposés on the CDC -- each time demonstrating that the allopathic health care systems in America use the CDC as a garbage dump for Peter-Principled medical doctors -- but, while doing this has historically removed incompetent doctors from providing direct care, it also produced a system in which national policies are predominantly being made by individuals with no competency.
America -- and the world -- was hoodwinked over 100 years ago into establishing allopathy as the supposedly only true, legitimate branch of medicine. Since that time, Big Medicine and Big Pharma have captured every relevant government agency, subverting every aspect of health care in a way that maximizes their profits while disregarding what is best for citizens, all the while taking credit for every medical advance as if humanity was on its own incapable of producing those advances. If one looks at the cornerstones of hospitals built prior to 100 years ago (many still around), one will discover that many began as naturopathic hospitals or osteopathic hospitals or homeopathic hospitals or preventive medicine clinics -- even ayurvedic hospitals here and there. All were successfully propagandized as being 'quacks' while allopathy convinced federal, state and local governments to define allopathy as the only legitimate branch of medicine.
Prior to that, individuals were free to make their own assessments of where to seek health care. Getting drugs and getting cut (surgery) are pushed as the only legitimate approaches to health care. What is now known as "the medical model" is actually the allopathic model, which creates perpetual clients through a system of simply taking people from states of sickness only to states of temporarily-just-barely-not-being-sick. No incentive exists to produce lasting health. The result is maximized rates of diabetes/dementia and heart disease, as well as the number-one related problem of obesity, especially among women (in the past 100 years, men have gained .5 inches in height and 10 pounds in weight, but women have gained 1 inch in height and 65 pounds in weight -- almost 90% of women are overweight, 70% are obese, and 30% are morbidly obese [their average life span is under 60 years]).
This is what government regulation has produced. The incestuous marriage between government bureaucracy and Big Medicine/Big Pharma did that.
I agree that we don't want to fight the same battles periodically, but, I'm sorry, necessitous vigilance is strictly a given, so your "change must be permanent" formulation is flawed logic -- change can be monumentally valuable without being permanent. However, removing government regulation can make reversibility significantly more unlikely, which argues for something along the lines of ethical anarchy or libertarianism (significant overlap between the two).
I would further argue that the presence of potential reversibility is actually a benefit rather than a deficit, because it discourages complacency.
Well, the honest, pragmatic, practical answer is that neither it nor anything else can be protected against its removal or abuse, because laziness and apathy will always gravitate toward centralized Big Government solutions.
My assertion is that seeking a permanent solution translates into ensuring that we will permanently be enslaved by tyranny into serfdom at best.
It's probably only human nature to wish that solutions could be produced by very-short-term difficulty that would be followed by long-term stable freedom. That, to me, is a childish, immature, feminine posture -- and is what has led us into our current state of conundrums of dilemmas. The only 'solution' is for men to remain eternally vigilant. We can't just man up for a brief period and then go back to being pussy mules, no matter how compelling women make it for us to do so. I'm sorry to have to say this (but unapologetic about doing so), but the female who knows what is best for her and for the world at large is the exception to the rule. Given the opportunity to do so, women and weak men default to an operational setting in which their decisions are based on whatever it is they think will benefit them in the moment or, at best, the near future. Men are far more capable of looking at the Big Picture and mapping out proper pathways that lead to sustaining stability and creating improved long-term outcomes -- so I've become oriented toward calling out men who behave like women by thinking that being impulsive and opportunistic while sitting on their laurels is a legitimate life approach.
I'm convinced that there's nothing laudable about men allowing themselves to be dominated by women (and this most assuredly applies to men who allow their wives to pretend to submit to them while actively sabotaging their leadership or vision). Rather than 'blessing' such men as 'romantic' or 'sensitive' or even 'loving,' we would all be better off if we accurately tarred-and-feathered them as the treasonous traitors they truly are.
No matter what structural changes are enacted, they will only remain intact if men vigilantly stand tall, insist on respect, and refuse to give women the upper hand. If enough men are doing that, those who would work to reestablish or further extend ruling-class tyranny will think twice about their efforts to enslave the rest of us.
Nothing is permanent in human history. But we can make things permanent as possible.
Ideal political system is too expensive to move in wrong direction and very cheap to move in right direction.
Key problem of current system is very high cost of change. The bigger the polity, more is this true. There were already tries to reform Washington and they failed. It's too bloody expensive when special interests get entreched and digged in.
Not for changes in wrong direction.
Only vices favor Big Government. Virtues are opposite. For example, self-reliance is greater with smaller government.
Make keeping better system relatively easy. Anarchism has advantage of encouraging seccession. Cheaper to convince 1M to leave than 70% of 330M to change their altitudes (I say 70% rather than 50% due to cheating by ruling class) and vote for somebody else.
What is the ideal political system, and where has it been successfully implemented?
At civilization level Medieval Christendom. I have to warn that most evils associated with medieval time aren't from medieval, but later. Witch burning is example.
For smaller "units" islandic Commonwealth, Acadia when settled and before British have taken over, Cospaia.
I didn't think throught all criteria for ideal political system. I want to push far more voluntarism because it will fix bunch of problems.
For rest I don't care so much. NAP is only mandatory law. For rest of needed, like noise from house, acceptable amount of clothing in public and rest needed for normal culture I 'm far less worried how laws get made.
There is always possiblity of exit. But I do expect something like 100 000 Lienchesteins just in Europe, so there won't be lack of choice. In long term this will move thing into more reasonable stuff.
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Re: 'Ideal' political system:
Seems to me it's a different Big Brother, but the same spirit.
Personally, I think I'd suggest David was about as close as we ever got.
How about the Almighty State Church, the Inquisition, and capital punishment for laity having a COPY of Scripture?
Seems to me it's a different Big Brother, but the same spirit.
Personally, I think I'd suggest David was about as close as we ever got.
I think that Moses did pretty well also.
And Solomon, at first.
It is interesting that a woman was David’s stumble, but women and alliances were Solomon’s downfall.
Yeah, but Moses was never intended to be permanent. They were 'in the wilderness,' YHVH was literally among them, and talking first-person to the anointed leader, and they didn't even have to farm for a living.
This got me thinking a little.
In Rome it was forbidden for man to show of his wealth on his clothes. Ban didn't apply to wife.
So put as much as possible on wife.
Ergo 1 Tim 2:9. An obscenely huge diamond on an engagement ring, the source of the decision to select that stone being pride and vanity, is the spirit and meaning of the letter re: immodesty.
Spanish Inquisition killed 20-30 people yearly. Torture was applied to less than 3% and most were subjected just one. Pretty light.
I'm certain more were killed yearly for real crimes like murder and stealing.
Christendom is about 500-1500. After that comes early modern era where states are being formed. Slowly and painfull. So Spanish Inquisition is more early modern era.
Almighty State Church is impossible in Christendom because states don't exist. Although expect reaction when established social order is threathened.
Anyway, fact that Catholic Church can't remove heresies is their religious problem, not political problem. I don't know much about book ban.
I don't claim Christendom was best time in human history. Hyginiene disaster in cities, widespread poverty, 70% and more income spend on bread. It wasn't nice time.
But voluntary associations were everywhere. Cities, universities and many others started as voluntary associations. Old Germanic Law blocked impositions of rules from above. There were no taxes for centuries. Allodial right ensured 100% property protection. By definition, nobody can impose any duty on allodial land.
Relationships between people were contract and oath based. They were personal relationship between socially superior and lower. And lower ones had legal right to leave association because superior didn't keep his promises. And kings were taught to be decent people, otherwise barons will leave/replace him. There wasn't anyvpublic property or treasury. So kings payed for wars from their own pocket.
It wasn't perfect system. With military aristocracy as ruling class, they are definitetly too much warlike. On other hand there was real effort put into arbitrage.
Feudalism is born because ruler lacks money. No money = no taxman and army. So he outsource to high nobility who are in same position, so outsourcing to lower nobility. Continue till lowest person. Which means that person must negotiate between themselves. Much better situation than what we have now.
One advantage of this system though was that war was a professional affair between very small professional armies. The peasantry were not expected to fight, in fact the nobility actively distrusted them to because they might turn against them. That meant that war was a much smaller affair and fewer people died. The peasants would then find they had a new king and pay tax to the new guy, life largely continuing as it had. Politics didn't matter as much to most people.
This changed with mass mobilisation of the citizenry particularly at the time of the French revolution, when wars became much larger and bloodier. Once the French kicked out the nobility and mobilised a massive citizen army, and everyone else had to do the same in order to withstand them, along came Napoleon and Europe was drowned in blood to a scale that was unthinkable during the medieval period.
The above is a terribly crude summary that I'm sure can be torn to shreds with counterexamples, I'm talking about overall generalities.
Taxes didn't exist for centuries.
Deal was simple from peasant perspective.
You pay knight for protection service. Emphasis of service. You negotiate you fee.
Yes they did, especially in medieval Europe, they were just called something different. Rent, for instance - the land was owned by the lord and the peasants rented it off him for a portion of their produce. Labour also - they'd be required to work a certain number of days for the lord. These are both taxes, or at least a portion of them is tax.
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Tax is mandatory. You don't have to work on lord's land if you have enough of your own. So rent is voluntary because working on his land is benefit for you. It's like commision in sales today. Total amount of produce is split.
And rent is legal. You are on another's man private property.
Hello.....
Tax is mandatory. You don't have to work on lord's land if you have enough of your own. So rent is voluntary because working on his land is benefit for you. It's like commision in sales today. Total amount of produce is split.
And rent is legal. You are on another's man private property.
@MemeFan, when you are a serf who is legally bound to your lord's land and is forbidden to leave, as was the case in feudal europe, rent is not voluntary. That coercion blurs the line between tax and rent.
Really, it's just like property taxes. Legally, where we live, all land in the entire country actually belongs to the Crown. When you "own" land, you actually own a right to use that land in perpetuity provided you keep paying your property taxes. If you stop paying the tax, eventually your land will be seized and sold at auction to recoup the taxes. That's really not that much different to leasing the land from the Crown.
These things are not black and white.
Really, it's just like property taxes. Legally, where we live, all land in the entire country actually belongs to the Crown. When you "own" land, you actually own a right to use that land in perpetuity provided you keep paying your property taxes. If you stop paying the tax, eventually your land will be seized and sold at auction to recoup the taxes. That's really not that much different to leasing the land from the Crown.
These things are not black and white.
There was always possibility to move to city. If you stay there long enough, you were free. Usually one year and day.
Since due to bad hygiene like throwing trash out of window directly on streets, cities did lose population. Only reason there were able to keep same population was peasants arriving.
Or serfs could burn manorial court which contained legal records of serfdom. No lwgal documents, no duties.
Anyway peaseant did have one powerful card. What would happen if only labor force goes on strike? That's way nobility had to negotiate with peaseants.
With sovereignthy held only by Lord, nobles couldn't invent new rules
Your trouble comes from Wiliam Conqueror. He took all land as right of conquest and Crown has never sold anything. Selling which happened in other areas. England was unusally centralized from 11th century in comparison with rest of Europe.
There were always asshole willing to use force and invent new BS rules.
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Not to interrupt such an in-the-weeds discussion about the very real problem of ruling class oppression of average men, but I have a question for you, @MemeFan and @FollowingHim:
Should godly men refuse to perform Partial Husband chores for women who are unwilling to function as godly women within the general structure of scriptural morals and prescriptions?
Or should men who recognize the world needs repair focus on challenging the Ruling Class while men continue to perform as Partial Husbands so women can continue to believe themselves to be independent?
Should godly men refuse to perform Partial Husband chores for women who are unwilling to function as godly women within the general structure of scriptural morals and prescriptions?
Or should men who recognize the world needs repair focus on challenging the Ruling Class while men continue to perform as Partial Husbands so women can continue to believe themselves to be independent?
I don't know that you could give a hard-and-fast answer to that. The relationship between a man and a woman is a complex thing. A man should be "husbanding" or "shepherding" his wife towards improvement. Sometimes tough love is the right approach (refusing to do something), sometimes, (I'm struggling for the right word here) "normal" love is the right approach (doing things she appreciates). Sometimes pushing and sometimes pulling. What is right in a particular set of circumstances to best move a specific woman towards godly behaviour is something that an individual husband would need to determine.