Philosophy and Politics

So what do you think about hopelessness?  How often do you experience it?  Have you felt better relying on others, or did you find your own way to get through it?  It would be interesting for us to share our personal experiences to find out what works and what doesn't.  No one person has the answer, and sharing our combined knowledge is usually the best way to find out how to g...

What do you think about automated militaries?  Do you trust the government keep you safe all on its own?  Do we need a standing military of real human beings as a check against corruption of power?  What can we do to stop this from happening?  Do we really want to? Our future may depend on the answers to those questions. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://gun...

What do you think about the paradox of freedom?  Can you see in your own life how this applies to you?  Are there any groups you disagree with that you feel you need help to resist?  Understanding these things in our life that have no complete resolution doesn't make things easier to do, but it can help us to find peace with the process.  It is not hypocritical to value freedom...

What do you think about political parties?  Is it time to start casting them aside?  Do they really get anything done, or do they cause more harm than good?  Are you willing to go against the group of people you traditionally followed if they aren't doing what you voted them into office to do?  Independence of thought is critically important to advancing society in a way that i...

So how do you feel about being offensive?  Can you think of a time when you were offensive and it actually had a positive result?  How can you start to incorporate unconditional respect into your arguments?  We should never give in to ideas that don't align with our own philosophies just because someone tries to force it on us.  Careful thought and introspection are required, a...

What do you think about wisdom?  In what part of life do you find yourself?  Are you just getting started and want to learn how to be wise?  Or have you already experienced enough to know what you want and where you're going?  Self reflection is an important part of learning to be successful, because if you don't even know who you are, you can't make decisions that make sense f...

A lot of my posts recently have focused on trying to stay positive and move toward a goal, but what do you do when it seems like life is just out to get you?  You don't have to be living in terrible circumstances to feel like things just aren't working out.  Many people in our society struggle with depression specifically because they had dreams and aspirations that just didn't work out...

Is climate change really caused by humans?  Are guns really as dangerous as we're told?  Is nuclear power too dangerous to use?  It's hard to know in our modern political climate.  The truth is constantly obscured under a layer of sensationalism and fear.  How are we to get to the objective facts when no one seems to want to set aside political agendas and take a really go...

Does thinking about other people more like yourself change your perspective?  Could you truly empathize with someone who holds a different view from you and concede that maybe they deserve to choose their own way just as you do?  The conversations in our country would be far more productive and civil if everyone thought this way, and I certainly hope that the type of message contained in...

What do you think about this topic?  How have you applied logical thought to your way of thinking?  Can you delineate where you started from and how you got to your current point of view?  You may not have thought about it before, but if you trace your steps back, you'll realize that you may have put more rational thought into it than you first assumed.  Once you can do that, t...

What do you think about perseverance and patience?  How much more do you need to work on it?  Does thinking about these concepts in a more defined way help you see where you're struggling?  Hopefully something here causes a click inside that makes things make more sense, and someday that will turn into the amazing success you've been hoping for. This episode is also available as a b...

I was thinking about this in light of some of the things I've been watching and reading lately and I wanted to put it down in writing before the train of thought left me.  One of the biggest debates going on in our modern society today is about rights.  What constitutes a right and how are we to interact with them?  It's difficult to come to a consensus on this issue. This episode i...

Unfortunately, it seems that the fight against racism will continue on.  We just don't seem to know how to let it die.  This next battle should be about removing all racial identity from our thinking, because until we are able to put aside our obsession with skin color, our society will never find any real peace.  It seems that the side of hatred is making their move and it is up to...

In the last post we talked about laziness and how it invades our lives in a way that is difficult to overcome.  Today, let's talk about the opposite of laziness.  It's a good thing to discuss given what I said about myself in the last article, having fallen victim to it for most of my life.  Especially in the last eight years, I have been gripped by apathy because nothing seems wort...

At my heart, I am a writer and a reader.  I love movies and have spent a lot of my life doing that.  For the last few years I've made feeble attempts to get back into reading and writing, and to be honest it is the career I think I would find the most fulfilling.  These blog posts are partly to share my opinions on certain things and provide logical arguments for why things are the...

If we understand that we fundamentally can't trust putting human beings in direct control of things, it seems that the answer truly lies in a heavily capitalist leaning society with minimal controls to reduce corruption.  The ideal capitalist system has no face or ideology; it is simply about producing the most stuff at the most profit.  With proper controls, everyone wins.  If it's...

As Americans, we need to go back to the very beginning and figure out where our starting point is.  Once we do, we'll have a much better understanding of where we're going.  If we don't, the aimless wandering of our government policy will continue to drain away our wealth and prestige, and hopelessly partisan arguments will hinder our ability to remain the most powerful nation on the pla...

We can absolutely come together to get done what we agree on, and rationally discuss the things we don't.  But until we purge the parasites from our system, we will continue to struggle just to survive.  If you are reading this post and you feel alone, know that you are not.  Regardless of which political party happens to be in power, there are so many people out there who are more...

As Americans, we live in a country that allows us to make new choices and change our way forward.  All it takes is a little bit of effort and a little bit of reason to find the way to overcome this false doctrine of security.  The power lies in that piece of paper that we all have the opportunity to mark when a new round of elections come around.  It is the first cost we must pay to...

I truly hope that at some point the people will rise up and stop allowing the government to abuse them the way that it does...not with violence or rioting, but by voting the people who do these things out of office.  The unfortunate truth is that the majority group tends to be the more quiet group because they have had things the way they want for a long time and they don't really notice the...

The title of this blog post is "A Life Wasted".  It may be more harsh than is warranted, but for a long time now I've felt like I'm just existing.  A person needs to feel like they're doing something with their life, and maybe this is something I can do that will take me into the next phase.  It is my hope that this will somehow turn into a place where meaningful discussion takes pl...