CAPTAIN'S BLOG
An Ex-Conservative's Take On The Invalid Rational and Logical Basis of Modern Conservatism3/19/2017 In a word: Modern American Conservatism is garbage. It is an embarrassment to the political process, constantly betrays the principles it is thought to uphold, is fueled by ignorance, isolationism, paranoia, the worst parts of religion, and willful ignorance. I say this having grown up as a young Conservative in a relatively Conservative household. I appreciate some of the basic facts of Conservatism - an efficient government, a government generally uninvolved in the day to day lives of the people, and an economic system based upon Capitalism and a free market. The values espoused by those who claim to have read Atlas Shrugged seem flipped on their heads: I see wealthy cronies using their power and social influence to get people to do things that doesn't help anyone but themselves, going for zero-sum games when mutually-beneficial ones exist. My Conservatism died with the invention of fact checking via The Internet. To wit, I reject the notion that Wikipedia is an automatically invalid and biased source, and besides, I check my citations. First, we'll start with the basics. First off, I believe in small government too. A small government does not care which bathroom I use. A small government does not care if a woman has an abortion. A small government does not prevent scientists from reporting their discoveries A small government does not prevent scientific research for moral reasons A small government does not invest more in their military than any other nation. A small government does not care about my gender, or the gender of who I marry. A small government does not imprison people for behaviour like drug use or prostitution. A small government does not care if felons can vote. A small government does not imprison more people than any other nation in the world. A small government does not gerrymander districts. I also believe in an individual's right to be free. The pursuit of happiness. You are not free if you are one missed day of work away from losing your home. You are not free if you are one unplanned pregnancy away from losing your home or job. You are not free if you are unable to get a job because where you live, no one hardly ever sees a person of colour, or a queer person. You are not free if someone's irrational beliefs, religious or not, can curb your rights. You are not free if you are not making a Living Wage. You are not free if you have no time or energy to live your life. You are not free if you struggle to maintain employment because of your brain. You are not free if you struggle to maintain employment. I also believe in an efficiently run, not-wasteful government. It is more efficient and costs less to provide people with publicly funded healthcare. It is more efficient and costs less to provide people with education for free. It is more efficient and costs less to tax progressively - the more you earn, the larger percent you pay. It is more efficient and costs less to spend our money on science and technology than on war and defence. It is more efficient and costs less to reduce our CO2 emissions now rather than later. It is more efficient and costs less to leave LGBTQ people alone. It is more efficient and costs less to not punish drug use. It is more efficient and costs less to rehabilitate than to imprison. It is more efficient and costs less to provide Universal Basic Income than to provide Welfare and Employment Insurance. What Is Conservatism? How is it opposed to Liberalism?I asked my Father, the key conservative in my politically formative years, this question often.
Eventually we came to a foundational dichotomy that made some sense to me: Conservatism is about the preservation of the a culture and state as it currently is. Liberalism is about changing that culture and state to fit some new ideal. Both entail enforcement of some sort of moral principle - either it is morally right to prevent progress at the expense of the oppressed or it is morally right to expedite progress at the expense of the oppressors. A visual representation of these concepts (with much more detail) is available from the great Information Is Beautiful, in their piece "Left Vs Right". The joke when I was younger was that Liberals are wont to impulsively go for all of the things that they want without adequately considering the financial or moral or otherwise unexpected consequences. This has, indeed, become the joke of the Modern Conservative Movement - both in practice, and in their impressive ability to project their own prejudices and biases onto their political opponents with a blindness that takes one's breath away. The idea that Liberals are the ones who have their head in the clouds of dangerously wishful thinking while Conservatives stick to the practical and the "stick to what you know" and "common sense" thinking paradigms became hilarious the moment Trump was elected President - but it's funny for a while before that. He is the master of lying like an 8 year old - the narcissistic ideal of being right, and a grim reminder in how illusory free will can be to the truly malfunctioning. The simple fact of the matter is that we have reached the extent of what common sense can do for us. The very big and the very small and the very interconnected all behave in ways that do not make common sense. We've also been crippled by Conservatism's constant undermining of education - including the very foundations of public education as established by an old fashioned, heavily-capitalist society. Read On for more reflections on the failures of Modern Conservatism. We start with the rather bleak history of Conservatism, from the rejection of Climate Science to the rejection of the American Revolution.
0 Comments
I can remember the person I once was. The lover that I once was.
In my last relationship, I had established a self confidence that I could really rely on. I knew the person I was and the person I wanted to be. I had the inner strength to count on my own self worth - I was who I was, and I liked who I was. I believed in myself, and I believed in my partner. Realizing that I couldn't believe in my partner dealt a severe blow to my ability to trust myself. And in my ability to trust my partner. I've been rebuilding identity and self confidence since. How could I have been so wrong about someone? It's a devastating question. Is there an illusion of choice? Is this question any different from asking about the illusion of free will?
We know that we are not free in the broad sense because we cannot do that which does not occur to us, and that which does occur to us bubbles up from our subconscious in a way which we cannot control or be held responsible for. But most people's experience carries the feeling of choice. We have options, and we discern between them, and arrive on a conclusion. From what we're doing that day to what hair dye to get to investigating what our level of mental stability is like. Sometimes we're curbing our fights so we don't get into an argument before work - but sometimes, we don't. What is the operating function here? More fascinatingly - what is the chemistry like for someone choosing between two alternatives? There must be an accumulation of two competing chemical reactions. Perhaps different inputs from the brain feed into these reactions, growing or shrinking their chemical potential depending on how the other parts of the brain influence the reaction with neural activity. So you're choosing which park to go to. Maybe you go to the park at the bottom of the hill by the community garden, or maybe you go to the far park with the bench. You size things up: The first park is much more proximate than the other. The parts of my brain that might care about such things feed into the reaction, growing it. Maybe I reconsider how much I care about proximation, and the two chemical reactions equalize somewhat. Still other factors are factored in - I took that pretty redhead to the close park, but the second park is nicer and going there with Marion always feels special. The first park has raspberries right next door. The second park has more people, so that sucks, but today I'm feeling social - you get the idea. So the decision that is made is still composed of physical processes just like our sense of consciousness itself is. Whatever is controlling the brain and its ability to choose, it is based upon the physical structures and principles of the brain. This means that the this choice process is probably at least somewhat local in nature - it may not be a brain structure itself, but maybe a race condition between these two chemicals which are influenced by the regions of the brain invested in that decision. But what is to be made of neurological disorders - why is it that some people seem to have more freedom of choice than others? Would You Leave Your Partner If You Found Someone Who Was A Better Match? Or: Monogamy Vs Polyamory7/10/2016 This is one of the bazillions of questions asked by the OKCupid dating site.
I think it was worded somewhat more precisely like this: "If you met someone who was a better match for while in a dedicated relationship, would you pursue that person?" And my answer was Yes. And I would really expect anyone to do this if the same happened to them. This doesn't mean that I don't believe in commitment or working to make things work. In fact, I believe in them very much - I don't automatically think that the ways in which two people don't get along means it's not worth working at. The nature of gradual change works with this, as people tend to change gradually instead of suddenly, cushioning the shock of when people change for the worse, instead of the better. Often, some reflection can reveal a startling delta between the person one first met and the person they are with now. But here's where polyamoury comes into it, and changes everything, from a heartless and irrational endeavour to a loving and rational one. "I think there are times when it is appropriate to convey anger to someone. I think it's appropriate to be motivated by a feeling of outrage when something that has been done is truly outrageous, is truly a sign of a kind of callousness that is causing harm in this world."
-From Sam Harris on the James Atlucher Show One of the most uncomfortable things about the way I feel, and one of the reasons that it has taken me so long to get a handle on things - with progress continuing to be uneven - is how much anger and even hate I feel. I'm not an angry or hateful person - I could get carried away by my passions all too easily, but my intention was never to hurt anyone. Of course my Facebook arguments are as legendary as they are infamous, but they were driven not by anger, but really by a simple passion for the truth and for understanding. Frustration enters the fray once understanding cannot be found, as others are all too vulnerable to the feeling of fear and dread that is associated with being wrong, especially in a public forum. I think this is a public and social weakness - being wrong is in fact a great thing. When you predict(ed) some result, and get another, that means one of your assumptions is incorrect and needs to be analysed and updated or replaced. This is the maxim by which I've lived my life - being wrong or experiencing something unexpected is an opportunity to learn. So indeed, I often reflect on the things I ought to learn from the utter failure of Aria's and I's relationship - which is an unexpected result. It is certainly the best result - but that is based mostly on the person Aria has revealed herself to be, rather than my own desires. But Aria shows that person only to a select few, and good news: I am one of the lucky ones. Only the 'blacklisted' people get to see the real her - the her that shows up when the chips are down and the pressure is on and it's make-or-break time. She ruthlessly protects herself and is only looking out for herself. I don't work like that - I can without a doubt be selfish, but I'm not cruel. I may take an extra toke or drink a bit more vodka than is equal, but I never take everything. It's just a gross thing to do. I've never felt less like my true self than over the last couple of months. Yesterday, at last, I got a taste of something closer to the real me - the joy of helping Marion move with the help of the Pulsar was incredibly infectious and healthy. I should spend more time with people - the many small interactions I had throughout the day, making people laugh and smile, maybe some flirting here and there, and looking into Marion's beautiful eyes while we're stuffed in the elevator with all of our things - it reminded me of the person I used to be. Passionate, not angry. Loving, not suspicious. Trusting, not paranoid. 'Jessiethelover' is a username I chose rather seriously. The net and my mother tell me to keep the damage Aria has done to me to myself. Fake it till you make it. I just can't do that - I'm not ashamed of admitting that the things Aria has done has driven me to do things and feel things and imagine things and hope for things I never could have imagined before. I did those things - I'm responsible for my actions, and I regret them. I know I did my best in the moment and did my best to give myself time to normalize my emotions, and did my best to use the rationale and advice of others' to replace my own emotionally charged ones. I'm happy to apologize for the things I've done. I'm not ashamed of that because I know that those feelings aren't me and that I don't want to feel them. I do my best to think about positive things to break out of the loops of negative thinking. As neuroplasticity suggests, this is a time-consuming process, and the brain can work against itself here - Acute Stress Reaction disorder and C-PTSD essentially force the brain to relive those moments, thus reinforcing the stress reaction. It's a time consuming and difficult process to interrupt, hence the high suicide rates in people who experience PTSD; transpeople it seems, included. Mindfulness has been as critical a tool as it always has been, but against the tidal wave of emotions - increased by exposure to Aria's emotional extremes (BPD Fleas, a phenomenon confirmed by my therapist) - it has been a palm tree straining in the hurricane fruitlessly in the intensity of my emotions. But progress, however slow, especially to the outside world, is being made. I look forward to becoming the person I am supposed to be - and not the person Aria was trying to make me into. --- Some cool quotes from Sam Harris while I listen to his talk: "I think Godwin's law is socially harmful - there are some comparisons which can be made towards the Nazi's. There are some Nazi-like things in this world today. It's a shorthand way of thinking that I think is dangerous in this world." - Sam Harris An interesting statement. "If you were going to make one change in your life that would make your life and everyone's life around you better, it would be being radically honest across the board." Oh Sam. Marry me? |
AuthorChristina Hitchens is a trans female writer living in BC, Canada. She loves computers, animals, and a good argument. Archives
March 2022
Categories
All
|