Ideal Political Organization phase 1

[Carl Ballard Swanson (banzai9)]

Ok I know lots of people here on MondoGlobo call themselves post-ideological. I really can understand that. Lots of people I meet are not really coherent enough to even call themselves political. When I say you are not coherent I am not trying to be insulting I am just pointing out that having one idea should sometimes exclude having another. I also know that to some degree I am guilty of not being coherent also. I am working on it.

Let me give a few examples of incoherence. Say you believe in the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have others do unto you, do you also believe in pre-emptive war and specifically the Iraq war, which should not even be called a war because it is not authorized as such but I digress. Another example of coherence, and this is really going to push buttons here, Gun Control. This is a favorite wedge issue. We have people who advocate for more citizen control of federal government but desperately want the same citizen controlled government to disarm the citizens. The question you have to ask is do I trust citizens to administer themselves? I saw an interesting cartoon yesterday - "why do mass shootings happen in "gun free zones?" - Same reason th... Oh yeah before you start telling me I want to give kids assault rifles - just stop we aren't ready for that yet.

The point of all this blog about incoherence is not that it exists but what to do about it. Clearly humans are allowing themselves to accept incoherence and we are still able to function. It goes back to the whole - Truth is King or is the King the Truth and anyway magic tricks still work.. just where are they taking you.

The take away lesson here, the gospel so to speak, is how we, as a group, accept incoherence. Do we allow Neanderthal narratives, do we assign or even allow self assignment of talismans of authority. Without an accepted method of credentialing, of constituting collective coherence and incoherence we will end up exactly where we always end up and that is my point. I vote we get dangerous and free.

Comment to receive your phase one merit badge!

[RU Sirius]

hmm, well to me both projects are about coherence in the sense that we are trying to take various groups and individuals who are in pursuit of some common goals, miscellaneously, and getting them to cohere. I'm "at war" with the miscelleneousness of net culture, at least in the pursuit of effective political action.

On the other hand, ideological consistancy(sp?) can become a way of not thinking about or not dealing with the complexities of the actual reality in front of us. Post-ideology allows for flexibility. As Bob Wilson said -- based on Korzybski's ideas -- "the prover proves what the thinker thinks." That's the danger of well-formed narratives and ideals etc.

Having said all that, I'm a bit nervous about putting fundamental rights into the hands of the states. And my view of fundamental rights might be a bit different than most. Of the three things cRitter just mentioned, I consider the right to abortion to be the most fundamental right. I think that the primary site of autonomy is the body and the brain and I essentially support the full panalopy of biological (and neurological) rights... this would place the right of women to control their birth processes, the right to death, the right to longevity, drugs, sex, ad infinitum at the center of our idea of rights that should be protected at the national level.

That's just my take, and not something that I'm using at this point for either of these projects. And I recognize there may need to be a maturation process by which we give people a chance to become accustomed to biological autonomy, particularly Americans who can't handle drugs...

R>

[cRitter]

As a "coherent" supporter of Open Government, I believe that gun control is a community issue and shouldn't be considered part of the national agenda. Most of these "wedge issues" such as abortion and gay marriage have no place being discussed in the presidential debates as a "blanket decision" would be unfortunate for the entire country.