Desires and Beliefs on the Path to the Truth!

Desires are like beacons  on our path in life marking the direction towards our purpose. As any force of nature they can be perilous and destructive or propel us towards our purpose in life if managed by a skillful captain. We are free to choose to guide the ship of our life towards exotic places or left without direction towards the only place our life will naturally go: the bottom, no matter how much we wallow in self pity.
To find out where we are and where we want to go we try to base our decisions on fact and proven theory. But life is much more complicated and on top of that personal so its often hard to find useful advice and guidance. What are we and were do we want to go? Everyone certainly has some idea about that. So do your friends and wider circle of relatives, workmates etc. There view may be close to yours or widely different. And somewhere there is the real you independent of opinion but certainly moving or being moved in one or other direction for good or bad.
Among all that we have our beliefs: the things we hold to be true without decisive proof because we didn’t have the time or the opportunity to check their validity. We still act upon them because we need to act and make choice big and small in every moment of our lives. So these beliefs influence reality and so in fact create into reality. Again we may be successful but that would be entirely due to chance. Only by sharing our beliefs, assumptions, hypothesis with other reasonable people and accepting any constructive criticism can we see clearer in the fog of complexity created by contemporary society. Our desires, passions, values, goals being the compass the best map will be the one created by thinking and experience, and open to corrections by fellow travelers.
And not only for advice often if not always we need outright help from others to achieve our goals. But how do we enlist that help? There are two obvious ways: Cooperation or Coercion. Coercion might come first to mind and seems like a quick and easy way to achieve your goals but it’s self-defeating in the end. Cooperation builds on common reasoning and pooling of resource to reach goals both personal and common trough understanding, compassion and common sense.

Knowledge and Happiness (Politics and Philsophy)

My starting point is the belief that knowledge is the basis of our well-being by helping us succeed in our pursuit of happiness and in our efforts to solve our problems. I believe in the ultimate sovereignty of everyone which cannot be ceded, transferred or divided. From it stems all political legitimacy on local, national. regional and world level.
That lead to the fact that respect for human rights is not an option but a must for every legitimate contemporary political entity. That democracy can only work where it is coupled with accountability and the above mentioned respect for rights including the rights of any minority. Dictatorship of the majority is no more acceptable that the dictatorship of an individual or an oligarchy.
Accountability means not only compliance with national and international standards of behavior but also all possible care to avoid harm to people, and support for criminal and terrorist setups or worse: corrupt, failed or oppressive regimes.

(Politics and Philsophy)

Expect Great Things, Attempt Great Things

William Carey a devoted Christian said that but the power of any true faith is that it is universal. You don’t even have to believe in God to figure out the truth. If this world we exist in is great then we can only expect great things. Attempting great things makes a lot of sense then. Actually not attempting them sounds like pretty silly and going against nature itself. Of course we always have a choice. Albert Einstein figured out that there are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle;
the other is as though everything is a miracle. The truth is that he is joking. Life is a miracle already and if you choose to ignore it you are an idiot.
We don’t know everything and that’s OK. We make errors and that’s OK too because only those who do nothing make no errors. We are just human. The beauty of our challenge hidden in the urge to strive towards perfection knowing the impossibility to ever achieve it thus making our quest eternal should not lead to frustration but be a source of motivation.
Greatness is how the universe goes about its business so it is just natural for us to take over that law and attempt to use it for our own ends even if they may be mundane and seemingly insignificant. Everything is a miracle and has its place in the glorious harmony of the world even if you choose to ignore it. “How can you see clearly,” asks Mark Twain “if your imagination is out of focus?” You can’t of course. Not only you can’t see clearly if you don’t use imagination and ignore the miracle you will have trouble communicating with others because who will ever believe you if you don’t see the truth and don’t tell them the truth? And who will help you when you need help and who will ask you for help so you can feel needed if we don’t share that truth?
And our most powerful tool for discovering the truth are our dreams, propelled by our imagination, made real though reason. “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” says Henry David Thoreau and if you haven’t built the castles yet, the miracle of reality must eluding you.
Because: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” as Eleanor Roosevelt observed. And reality is only yesterday’s future.

Power, Democracy, Government and Sovereignty

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If politics is about power and power is the use of resources controlled by others to achieve our goals. It can be achieved through cooperation or coercion. Cooperation takes longer, is more difficult to achieve and may require some modification to the original goals or agenda but is ultimately cheaper and more stable. Coercion is easier and faster but unstable and resource hungry to the extent that it may defeat the meaning of the original goal.
Sovereignty is the justification of power. Although routinely connected with territory is universally accepted that it stems from the people and is expressed in a explicit or implicit social contract which can be unilaterally revoked by the people if the government doesn’t deliver the protection of the basic human rights of the citizens.
A state is a country with its people, government, political system and territory (not only the government). Of these the people posses sovereignty over a territory with the government responsible for the protection of human rights with security, law and order, private property and equal opportunity among them. The government can legitimately represent the people internationally but only as long as it defends the people’s interests in the best possible way. Almost always that means avoiding war.

Sovereignty means that the people have the supreme right to govern themselves and conduct their domestic and external affairs. The state includes the people and if the government is oppressive and disrespects the will of the people that government cannot claim legitimacy. Following this logic we cannot speak of the state of North Korea as the government doesn’t represent the people. North Korea can be discussed only in terms of the oppressive, illegitimate government on one side and the people about whose opinion unfortunately we don’t know much on the other. (Ironically the official name of the country has the people mentioned three times as in “people’s” “democratic” and “republic” but that doesn’t change the fact that the people are not represented by that government.)
Democratic governments where minority rules are not respected also cannot claim sovereignty because they are forfeiting the right of the minority. Therefore the Civil War in the US did not curtail South’s sovereignty but helped defend it because there couldn’t be a valid claim to sovereignty in the South if the slave’s rights weren’t taken into account. Legitimacy can be based on the sovereignty of each and every person.
Similarly it is odd to impose economic sanctions against a totalitarian state as they only punish the people and not the governing tyrants responsible for the crime in question. If we assume that the term state means political organisation of the society in a particular country then that certainly is not the case in a country where there is no liberal democracy (meaning a government which is popular, accountable and respects human rights including the rights of minorities. This excludes popular nationalistic governments like Hitler’s or Mussolini’s and popular non-secular governments. States that are corrupt and failed cannot legitimately claim sovereignty. Also it is cynical to demand payment of debts incurred by a tyrant the fault for such bad debts lies with those who gave credit to a corrupt individual not the people who had no choice or say.
Sovereignty is of the people and for the people. The state can only exist legitimately to defend their right to life, property, freedom and the pursuit of happiness.

World Government: Should We Be Scared?

You can only be in charge of your own fate if you work towards it. It’s not the government that gives you freedom you have freedom as a birth right but have to work constantly for it.to materialize. Generally I believe that there should be no difference between the US government and a future World government like there is no much difference between the government of California and the US government though their is a difference between the Governor of California and the President of the US. That’s why I thing all cries against globalization and new world are unfounded and foolish. We can only fear what we don’t know. What we create ourselves cannot be scary for if we don’t like it we can remake it. A proper government is essential for prosperity. The only proper government is a democratic government so the only legitimate world government is the one that helps us preserve and further our rights to life and the pursuit of happiness and if not we bring it down and forge another that will do that. I don’t see any problem here. Tell me if I am wrong?

China’s future

China’s unique experiment 30 years successful capitalist development under the rule of the communist party. Bearing in mind the capitalist development was with massive US help and the communist party was very open minded unlike others it worked. But what about the future?

Foreign Policy Chirstmas Wish

War has proven expensive and ineffectual for resolving foreign policy issues. War is useless and plainly wrong. Yet international problems are there and if not solved or at least addressed threaten go grow to monstrous unmanageable proportions that usually default to war anyway.  Iran seems to obstinately try to acquire nuclear weapons (maybe not so much as to attack the US or anyone else as an insurance for Iran’s despots against Saddam’s fate by threatening to bomb Israel if attacked by the US) and Russia too seems to play their game by selling them weaponry and technology, all perfectly legal but still scary. Shall we allow an unholy alliance of Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua? What to do impose and embargo which as usual will punish the innocent and strenYet

I believe the best approach to avoid that  would be something I call embrace them so tight that they can’t move against you. That’s what the US did in Europe in Japan after WWII do they need monitoring? No. Are they likely to become a genuine concern? No. The same approach was  used by France towards Germany after loosing so many wars the French invented the EU which basically is the mighty Germans pay everyone else and quietly control the Union while France gains free security and independence and the right to claim superficial leadership. That’s what Kissinger did in with China. Can China ever be a threat to its biggest market? The alternative is bomb them and see what happens, but I guess by  now we all know what happpens when you do that.
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Thinktellectuals

It was certainly easy in prehistoric times to get into an easy public job doing nothing while others provide for you. I believe the first profession wasn’t that one you are thinking about but that of the rainmaker. One only had to claim the ability to make rain and that was enough to ensure the good life of relative though primitive luxury. Not much competition for the job either because those who failed to produce rain were killed and probably eaten by their unhappy clients. It must have been hard to make rain too because the job probably existed only in dry regions. Given the difficulty to produce rain prehistoric professionals turned to other devices preserve their status of being fed without having to work by preventing their benefactors from turning against them by inventing paid armies and religions to invoke god’s wrath upon their Brute force and ideology managed to keep the masses in check even when the masses managed to topple the dictator the revolutionaries themselves turned “professional rainmakers” see Castro and the like. And democracy alone is not an answer: the ancient Greeks managed to kill Socrates for thinking and Hitler was democratically elected.
The only hope for finding and keeping under control someone who knows something about rainmaking is the liberal system of checks and balances as in the US. It’s not perfect (no human creation ever is) but even if under permanent reconstruction (the way any proper political system should be) it has shown remarkable resilience and ability to recover from dangerous disasters

Freedom, Talent and Happiness

Creativity and imagination are the most precious resources of civilization. They are the building material forming the basis for understanding and invention. Luckily it seems their seeds are spread widely and abundantly. At the same time they seem to easily wither and die without proper nurture and care.
A dead dream is everyone’s loss and people can’t follow their dreams if they are hungry, scared or oppressed. Need, fear, and ignorance kill freedom and with freedom the chance for understanding and prosperity.
Freedom doesn’t come free of charge. Precious as it is it must be cherished, earned, and defended. It’s not a goal but a process and indispensable first step towards good life and happiness. Freedom is not divisible. You cannot be partly free. Freedom can only reign supreme or else it dies.
You cannot be truly free if your neighbor is not. That’s even more so if you have special talents and in my opinion everyone has talents. Only some don’t bother to develop them. That’s not simple laziness that is a crime. By ignoring your talents you rob yourself and those close to you from the happiness and good life that you deserve.

Where to find the knowledge that we need to know

“O, You God! You proper God!

Not you god up in the sky,

 But You God down here, in this heart and soul of mine …”

Hristo Botev

There is one great book that has all the knowledge in the world. Everyone has it but few can read it properly. It is hidden deep within us. Gratitude is the key to unlock these thoughts and feelings which if we are sincere will give the answers to all the questions and solutions to all the problems that we may have. We, people, are the most complex organisms in the world consisting of complicated chemical reactions based on complex laws of physics which follow complex mathematical rules and principles. Thus in a sense a human being is an expression of the whole Universe and the focus which concentrates and disperses complex energies.That is why to study people is the greatest science which has provoked the interest of everybody the knowledge about people being the most useful and precious in the world.To study people properly we must first study ourselves, and then if we have time we can study the others. If we study the rest and then ourselves there is a great risk that our knowledge might end up convoluted, contaminated or distorted.Look deep inside yourself, be as sincere as you can and you fill find the solutions to most of your problems.Don’t be too harsh judging yourself. Look bravely in the mirror and smile contently. Be happy and grateful for what you are for you are unique and have a special purpose in life. There might be blemishes here and there, things that you can polish, more work to do, add to your wealth, more fun, more love, things that you could learn, which knowledge could add to your wealth, security and happiness, because it hardly can be called knowledge if it can’t help you with that, but still be happy. Don’t worry. Worry and fear are from the devil 🙂