What's the Message, Mr. Gardiner?

An open thread dedicated to discussing books, movies, and tv shows we love. And occasionally some politics.

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NOTE: This is the second part of my essay on Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience." It's now become a three-part essay, for reasons I go into below. I'm determined to write about the good part of Thoreau's argument, but when I was reading "Civil Disobedience" in preparation for this week's essay, I found some arguments so egregious I had to deal with them. I *promise* that next week's installment will be the last, and after that I will write about movies and TV shows for a good long while.

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I promised to focus on the good stuff in Thoreau this week, but man! there's a lot in his essay I'd forgotten--and I can't really ignore the fact that he's not in favor of democracy. Actually, he's not in favor of any system of majority rule, representative or direct. Nowadays, democracy is out of favor with some people because they've watched it get broken and replaced with a lie. That's not Thoreau's problem. He doesn't believe in majority rule in the first place:

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But the government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice...

Thoreau's idea that the majority rules because they are physically stronger seems so ahistorical and plain dumb that I hardly know what to say to it. In the first place, history is rife with examples of a minority ruling because they are physically stronger, at least in the sense of being able to hire lots and lots of people with weapons to keep the majority in check. We're living in one of those times right now, although I'll admit the dollar is currently used as much as the gun to keep us in line.

There's nothing about being the majority that guarantees that you will be able to win through physical force, and nothing that denies the minority the ability to win through that same physical force. Look at colonial India, run by a minority of British; South Africa, run by the descendants of Dutch settlers...how many examples do we need?

And whatever you might want to say in criticism of the American experiment and the early Republic, we didn't get majority rule rather than minority rule because the pro-republican forces in the Continental Congress arm-wrestled for it and won.

(HOW I ACTUALLY WISH IT HAD HAPPENED:)

Further, we didn't keep majority rule (of a sort) because the majority threatened to beat the minority's face in if they didn't comply. The closest we came to that, as I understand it, was when we were arguing with American colonists who wanted to remain British subjects. The truth is, we were quite divided on that question. The Tories were more or less strong-armed into accepting the new Republic, because, unfortunately for them, the army they supported lost. But that is war, and Thoreau isn't talking about war; he's talking about the civil society that followed the war. Majority rule (of a sort) was not maintained after the Revolution by constant physical intimidation. In fact, Thoreau is opening a can of worms here, because, since we've never had direct democracy here anyway, it's not exactly majority rule in any straightforward way in any case!

Now let's get into the idea of "justice." Thoreau says that "the government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice." Maybe so. But the government in which the minority rules in all cases cannot be based on justice either--because justice is not a function of whether you have minority or majority rule. Justice is a byproduct of right judgement, motivated by a desire to see right done, or at least a desire for fairness. It can arise from a minority or a majority. I hate to ask "Justice for whom?", but it's a pertinent question. I've been in enough Occupy GAs to know that inclusivity doesn't guarantee justice, fairness, or even common sense. However, if your goal is to attain the greatest level of justice for the greatest number, denying power to the greatest number and placing them under the judgement of a small minority seems a poor way to do it.

Thoreau does not think so:

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

Why does the government not cherish its wise minority?

It sounds like the basic idea here is that there's a wise, smart minority of people, of which Thoreau is an example, and the government should listen to them and follow their advice. Now, it's not like I don't hear the siren call of this particular idea. Nobody who has grown up progressive (or even simply a rational person of good faith) in the United States over the past 50 years could fail to respond to it. That's why it's a really good idea to have your friends tie you to the mast before you listen to it--or else plug your ears.

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http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=langjean&book=odyssey&story...

Yes, of course, we've all been driven to distraction by the rule of meanness, mercenary greed, and lies, and we've all felt that if only we were the ones ruling the roost, things would go better. There's probably never been a time in our country's history when this siren song has had more force, because at this point, we could probably pick names out of a hat and they'd do a better job than the current crop of powermongering sociopaths. But I don't think I have to explain that putting yet one more minority in charge of all the money and power because they're so smart is the answer.

Tolkien is useful here:

[Sam said,] "But if you'll pardon my speaking out, I think my master was right. I wish you'd take his Ring. You'd put things to rights. You'd stop them digging up the gaffer and turning him adrift. You'd make some folk pay for their dirty work."

"I would," [Galadriel] said. "That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas!"

It's possible that, living in the Age of Corruption as we do, we cannot take Thoreau's easy attitude toward power (Just find the smart guys and let them make the decisions!), any more than, living after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we could take Theodore Roosevelt's attitude toward war. But his attitude toward power, wealth, and influence illuminates the central problem with his essay: a profound confusion of the individual with society. He confuses the issue of whether laws should exist with the issue of whether the individual should obey them. For example, the question of whether there should be laws to prevent defense contractors from revealing classified information to the world is one thing; the question of whether Edward Snowden should obey those laws under certain specific circumstances in 2013 is quite another.

It's very odd that Thoreau criticizes the law for not creating justice or just men, when he begins his essay saying that the government which governs best, governs least, and that government is most properly a way for men to let each other alone. I would say that the primary function of the law is not to create justice, but to curtail unjust behavior. One can expand one's conception of the law into an instrument to create justice, as did FDR and many others, and great things can happen when human beings conceive of the law in this way. But the primary function of the law is to prevent abuse to person and property. And in any case, from the beginning of the essay, Thoreau clearly places himself with those who do NOT use the law to create a more just society, but with those who use the law sparingly.

I think Thoreau has difficulty distinguishing between the individual and society because, like Maggie Thatcher and countless libertarians, he doesn't want to believe society exists, except as an annoying impediment invented by the weak-minded and overly gregarious.

It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience: but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

Note how the social organization here has no force whatsoever, no power over the behavior of the individuals within it. I don't think that's true at all. But if it is true, why can it be true of a corporation, yet not of a government?

How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

Yet a man could, eighty years before, be associated with the East India Company with no moral trouble whatsoever?

This reveals one of the fault lines in Thoreau's argument: like many Americans, past and present, he seems incapable of seeing anything associated with commerce, trade, or finance as being a social structure. Or an authoritarian structure. Or a power structure with any impacts on human beings whatsoever except morally neutral ones. To me, a multinational corporation arises from social systems invented by human beings as part of civilization, just as much as a bank, or a government, or an Elks Club, or a school. Commerce and trade and money don't exist on the same level as the law of gravity or the speed of light. They are social constructs, because money is a social construct, no less than governments, courts, and laws. Thoreau's inability to see this is perhaps the reason that he pooh-poohs the justification for the American Revolution:

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it.

This is a profoundly disingenuous description of the colonies' problem with the British government and the East India Company. I'm not a historian, so if anyone has deeper knowledge of our history, please correct me, but as I understand it, the government of Britain gave a sweetheart deal to the world's first multinational corporation as a kind of bailout when they were facing tough financial times, granting them a legal monopoly on tea sales in the colonies, which squeezed out local American merchants. Worse, Britain did this after levying a series of other taxes with which they were trying to recoup some of their massive war debt by milking the colonies for it. The colonists were willing to put up with a lot less than we are, which is interesting, given that they were subjects of an imperial monarchy, and they felt, as Patrick Henry famously said, that governments shouldn't tax those they don't represent. The establishment of a legal monopoly made their ire even worse. Thoreau's breezy statement that he wouldn't make a stink about it, because he could do without those goods, ignores not only these wrongs, but also the fact that the colonists DID do without those goods--as a form of protest. In fact, on the most well-remembered occasion in this struggle, they did without them rather emphatically:

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Admittedly, this is not in the same universe of moral wrongness as slavery; but the fact that it is a lesser evil does not make it good. Many of the characteristics of this lesser evil have come back to haunt us: the bailout of large corporate powers, the sacrifice of small business to large, the squeezing of local economies in the service of funding military and corporate imperialist aims.

Thoreau's larger point here stands: if you have a problem with imperialistic monopolies and governments that extract money from subjects without providing political representation, how can you NOT have a problem with slavery or wars of conquest? Certainly the existence of slavery could provide a reasonable justification for revolution, and it's one of the weirdest things about our country that it was those who wanted slavery, rather than those who didn't, that eventually revolted. But Thoreau's ability to point out the major fault line running through the heart of the American Republic does not excuse the fault lines running through his own argument. Especially since he is quick to assert that the "wise minority" has no obligation to make things better for his fellow man or his country. In fact, the desire to make things better is a characteristic that Thoreau rather despises:

The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow--one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a fund to the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance Company, which has promised to bury him decently. It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.

This quotation lays out Thoreau's sense of what proper moral obligation is, and it's interesting that his sense of moral obligation begins with contempt for do-gooders, those who care for the poor (almshouses) and widows and orphans, who, at the time, would have likely been in economic difficulty. This do-gooder quality seems associated, for Thoreau, with a lack of manliness and self-reliance, and a desire for social intercourse. Given that the purpose of Thoreau's entire essay is to determine what an individual's moral obligation is in relation to the government and the great issues of his day, it's significant that he spends time assuring the reader and himself that the moral individual need not devote himself to the eradication of any wrong, no matter how terrible, because he might have better things to do! It sits oddly in an essay filled with such genuine, and admirable, repugnance toward slavery and conquest, that Thoreau really feels he is under no moral compulsion to be, for instance, an active abolitionist, trying to eradicate slavery. It is enough that he withdraws his support from the government which tolerates it, by withholding his tax payment.

I can't help but see the primary place of money in this moral system. In Thoreau's view, it's not necessary--indeed, it's somewhat contemptible--to try to rearrange financial or economic systems to help those who are in need or want; even charity is contemptible. And Thoreau is quite clear that no man needs to feel obligated to clear up the evils of poverty. You don't need to spend money to make things better. What you need to do is refuse to spend money to make things worse.

I don't want to be unfair to Thoreau, so I will end this week's installment by saying that, while he doesn't think anyone should have to spend money in order to pursue justice, he does, actually, believe that one should be willing to lose money gained in an unjust way. He is not an advocate of maximized profit at any cost. This is Thoreau at his best, and it's a good transition into next week, when I will, at last, come to the good part:

Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless...There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves the children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today?

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riverlover's picture

I would find him tiresome in soliloquies. Navel-gazing. My now-dead husband got this drone in his voice...

I am close to the Canadian border. War of 1812 had Loyalists scattering both ways. And many families are still proud of their "Loyalist" forebears to this day.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@riverlover He did not marry. I tend to think that he was homosexual, or at least a bisexual more interested in men; but I might be misreading him. His book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is a paean to intimate friendship (and not with a woman).

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Arrow's picture

Very nice and thought provoking. I need to read more.

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I want a Pony!

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Arrow Thanks! I feel a bit like I'm imposing on the community with these lengthy analyses, but once I started, I couldn't stop. Leftover professional pride, perhaps, from the time when I was a scholar; I can't stand to leave a job unfinished.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

forced to read anything, short or long.

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Arrow's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I read and enjoyed every word. Thank you very much.

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I want a Pony!

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Arrow Well, thanks for reading through it!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

No, they're interesting! And like anything, the ability to follow a train of thought requires exercise - use it or lose it!

Edit: much like my lack of proofing for typo-ed letters. If I don't start doing it, I never will do it... and if I don't start sleeping more, that'll indeed be the case, lol.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Ellen North Good. I was thinking, dear gods, I'm long-winded.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

You're a thinker. We need more thinkers and fewer Tweeters trained to mentally shut down after a very small character limit is passed, something which cannot possibly allow them to make necessary connections in following a complete thought or to understand any big picture they have only perhaps a few unconnected puzzle-pieces of and lack the patience/acquired ability required for a larger understanding itself as the basis for critical thinking from the apparent evidence.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

MLK, Jr. said he was inspired by Gandhi, but seemed unaware that Gandhi had been inspired by Thoreau.

Anyone willing to do time in prison for his or her principles? Respect.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace I'm getting to the good part, I promise. If there were nothing to respect in Thoreau, I sure as hell wouldn't have spent so much time on him. What makes him more than a facile proto-libertarian is coming up next week...

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Thank you for all your work on this.

I just wanted to state my admiration for people who are willing to take a hit for their beliefs.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace I'll drink to that.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@enhydra lutris You're welcome!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

shaharazade's picture

I did not read your the first part last week as the last three weeks I've had a flu/ head cold from hell. It's going around and people call it the plaque. Today my brain seems to be for the first time in weeks functioning enough to think. Still fuzzy headed but at least semi coherent.

I have a different take then you have presented here on Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. I may be more coherent then last Wednesday but not quite well enough to discuss my interpretation and why I agree with him for the most part. I tend to lean towards the rights of humans being the basis for governance and all law. Am I a libertarian? Nah, well maybe a bit.I also have anarchistic tendencies. I think any 'state' power needs to be resisted when it is unjust.

The fact that a majority has given their consent to govern to a lawless, unjust, unequal and oppressive government does not validate or make legal something like slavery, war crimes, corruption or abuse of power. As I see it people in the minority need to use civil disobedience and resistance, use their voices and power, to be a check on the majority. Democracy or representative governance is not a binary system or concept. The Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence to me are our sacred documents that elevate the universal principles human and civil rights.

"The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.… Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."

An aphorism sometimes attributed to either Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine, "That government is best which governs least...", was actually found in Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. Thoreau was paraphrasing the motto of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review: "The best government is that which governs least." Thoreau expanded it significantly:

"I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."
— Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

I'm dusting off my copy of Civil Disobedience and reading it before jumping into a discussion about Thoreau's writing and philosophy. By next Wednesday I will have my wits about me and weigh in with my difference of opinion. Thanks again and I love this series after all Civil Disobedience is a book. May not be fiction but it's good to reread or read great American writers. I just ordered up online from my county library, "An Organizer's Tale" which is a collection of the speeches of Cesar Chavez. It will be interesting to read this book after rereading Civil Disobedience.

I have been reading Langston Hughes poetry lately

Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

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@shaharazade @shaharazade

But shouldn't government be democratic, of, by and for the people, maintaining/protecting the rights, welfare and property of all against those who would predate upon them?

No civilization can stand without taking care of its own and ensuring equal justice for all. 'Might makes right' isn't even sustainable!

Edit: in example of pathological unsustainablilty, this was linked from a petition I signed today:

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-electrocute-pregnant-teen/#HWw93Qy...

Cops Electrocute Pregnant Teen with 50,000 Volts After She Demands a Warrant to Enter Home

Jay Syrmopoulos February 14, 2017

Tried searching for the petition without my info on it, copy-pasted with the miss-spelled (I hadn't even noticed - MUST START SLEEPING!) title: Change.org petition COPS ELETROCUTE PREGNANT TEEN WITH 50,000 VOLTS OF A TASER!

Failed to find it in search, (just one on an electrocuted teen being charged, a few on taser deaths and unrelated things quite high up and am now wondering if this was some kind of Trojan-factory scam... of course, search on my computer is fouled up anyway on 'sensitive subjects', of which it seems this might be one... And this petition doesn't seem to be listed on the Change.org site, at least as far as I looked.

So, I suppose that this could be a look-alike scam warning, especially since I have an idea that I stopped with Change.org, although I may be thinking of one/some of the others. Hate being this tired and stupid...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

shaharazade's picture

@Ellen North the best from I know of for decent governance. I'm not anti-democratic at all and I do not think Thoreau was either. I guess I did not express myself well. I in no way think might is right. Governments however especially democratic ones do tend to be predatory and protect their own rights, power and positions or those of wealth and privilege. I was speaking of how civil disobedience and resistance when a government does not recognize or care about universal basic civil and human rights. Equality and justice for all is not at all being implemented now and under slavery. I think people need to practice acts of civil disobedience outside the political structure of governments otherwise there is no justice,no peace. I'll comment next week when I can be more lucid.

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@shaharazade

And I'll hopefully be more lucid when next I answer, lol.

But I believe that both parties support(ed) civil disobedience, although Thoreau limited himself to a refusal to pay taxes - but Can't Stop The Signal believes that government should serve the public, while Thoreau believed that government should more or less stay out of the way, allow abusers to freely abuse the more vulnerable and mindlessly 'let the sparrow fall unseen' and without a responsible society offering aid to the elderly, sick, disabled, poor or those otherwise stricken with disaster. Although had he, for example, fallen into the Waldon pond while too ill or injured to save himself, he might have appreciated being given a hand getting out, rather than being himself left to drown by any passers-by...

And I don't believe that either one recommends supporting abusive government which, I may add, may not have been anyone's willing choice or actually winning on votes and so not really have that consent to be governed from the people at all.

But Thoreau was a curmudgeonly dreamer with some very good points and some bad enough to have curls in the middle of their foreheads.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44650

There was a little girl

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

(My Father used to quote a lot of nursery rhymes/poetry to us when we were little and we were always facetiously admonished not to be like the bad examples. And especially not the horrid ones, even under the excuse of personal philosophy. Thoreau evidently lacked this advantage.)

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Ellen North That poem is perfect for Thoreau.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

shaharazade's picture

@Ellen North poem to me frequently as I was and still am like Thoreau kind of extreme in the good and bad department. Perhaps I misread him but I did not feel he was socially a libertarian, a your on your own nasty individualist, like the lot we have now, but more of a libertarian like say Glenn Greenwald is, a universal civil rights type libertarian. I thought he was ranting about do-gooders who instead of creating democratic economic equality or a society that acknowledged all human and civil rights believed that charity and almshouses were enough to counteract the dead wrong abuse of individuals for economic gain. The rationalization of the unjust economics that thought the most basic of human rights, slavery was 'worth it'.

Maybe I'm wrong I'll reread him this week, it will be interesting to read what he had to say now that I'm grown up and have spent the last ten years as a political junkie of historic politics and the politics I've lived through. I used to have a big hate on for Jefferson and would argue with Shah for hours about what a hypocritical pig he was as a slave owner, misogynist and obscenely rich white dude he was. I reread his writing a few years ago and was able to let go of his life in time and read his ideas for what they really were advocating.

I do think that identifying with the persona's of pols, artists, writers and musicians past and present is a waste of time. They are all only human as my granddaughter says so these days I take what they have to offer and so not negate their insights and contributions to human progress. I don't follow blindly as fandom is not my cup of tea. Thanks for chatting and thanks to CStS for putting this out there to chew on. Another book i think I'll reread is De Toqueville's Democracy in America while I'm at it.

'The Law is King' Thomas Paine. Where's my habeas corpus or posse comitatus says Shaharazade. I may be democratic in theory but I do not like or want to pay taxes that go to support banksters, illegal criminal wars, or subsidize the oligarchical collectivists who once again rule the world. The current USA! USA! USA! government is nothing I wish to support in any way. I imagine that when Thoreau lived and wrote it was even worse. This is not what democracy looks like.

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@shaharazade

Lol, I'm frequently wrong and it could very well be me. I keep telling myself that my memory/brain'll function better if I sleep more, and I do hope I'm right! ROFLMAO(Hysterically, lol.)

This is weird - no idea how I manage this, but this is at least the 2nd time tonight that a new post I'm writing has somehow flipped to one I've already posted, so that the message I've started is suddenly beneath an older one? I seem to have a technological black thumb where each finger ought to be...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

shaharazade's picture

@Ellen North @Ellen North posting and replying. JtC is doing the best he can and to make this site functional and workable. I appreciate it even if it has flaws and is sometimes hard to communicate in a coherent flow. I need to pony up and send the site some money as it does allow us all to communicate and discuss the real issues we all face.

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@shaharazade

Lol, when I'm that groggy I figure I'm generally pretty safe in assuming it's me, although always pleasantly surprised when it isn't.

Yeah, I'm very grateful to JTC for this wonderful meeting-place and the amazing minds/writers it attracts and wish I had money...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@shaharazade Wow. Thank you so much for that, Shaz. Langston Hughes, amazing.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

But the government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice...

He's not making a blanket statement that all governments are run by majority rule. By 'majority' he means the prevailing government power, which, while in a democracy is said to be the majority, is really just shorthand for TPTB.

His argument is that just because the majority rules, that does not always mean that rule is just. This is an important point because it justifies those in the minority to resist an unjust majority.

Just below that line he writes:

Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

Basically, just because the government is lawfully empowered, does not mean the citizen must blindly accept the decisions of that government - especially where those decisions clash with a citizen's conscience.

Personally, I don't see much wrong with that.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

@Not Henry Kissinger @Not Henry Kissinger @Not Henry Kissinger

Thanks! Speaking for myself, I haven't read any Thoreau myself for I don't even know how many years and was going by what I (thought I) recalled of the OP when grossly overtired, which was a silly thing to do; very glad to see your clarification. Still seem to recall thinking that he was, like the rest of us very imperfect and (surprise, lol) a man of his time but evidently don't recall why, unless this was the result of my misinterpretations way back whenever.

Edit: actually was mostly thinking that what I believed to be CSTS's outlook was being misunderstood, not really of Thoreau's (re-edit:in my responses last night. Maybe someday, I'll be able to frame a coherent sentence, but, alas, not today. But elucidation is always appreciated.)

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger @Not Henry Kissinger My read: in an effort to justify NOT obeying laws, he's going overboard and saying that laws themselves are useless (I get that from "That government governs best which governs least and the best government would be one which governs not at all" and his statement that no law ever made a man more just, but many laws have made men more unjust); in an effort to provide freedom for the dissenting minority, he feels the need to undermine the idea that there is a moral value to majority rule--which is fueled, in part, by the fact that he dislikes and distrusts most people anyway! Thoreau has a disdain for the majority. He likes people like himself: well-educated, extremely private people with few real social connections who like solitude. A number of the thinkers I like from the early years of this country have a similar disdain for large masses of people/the majority. I'm very fond of John Adams, but dear God, he's got a terrible attitude toward "the masses!" It's very weird that the middle-class lawyer/farmer Adams is the one who fears mob rule while the aristocratic plantation owner Jefferson is the one who doesn't (with the exception of fearing being murdered by his own slaves, but that's another story.)

Back to majority rule vs minority dissent: my position is more of a middle ground. It seems to me that majority rule (actual majority rule, which we've never really had anyway) is the fairest thing humanity has yet come up with. But the majority is not always right. So there must be space for minority dissent, preferably without violent repercussions.

There's an important distinction between saying, for instance "There should be no laws regarding the revelation of classified material" and saying "Mr Snowden should be thrown into a detention center for the rest of his life as a traitor."

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

'The masses' of the time were often raised in ignorance and/or poverty and very isolated from new experience/different types of people by our terms, which doesn't mean that they lacked (often-undeveloped) intelligence or sense, but were not exactly mind-broadened, high-information or cosmopolitan types, that, of course, being why well-educated voters (all round, not merely regarding the candidates offered) are essential to democracy. And that means a good public school system universally available to all is essential - something which is being disposed of for profit, by profiteers and their pet politicians alike...

What too many young Americans are getting boils down to rote learning in what may be a propaganda mill, even within some public schools.

Edit: meaning, of course, that the ignorance, misinformation and lack of promotion toward the development of critical thought processes often present in 'the masses' of the past due to circumstance are being carefully re-instilled today, as I expect we all anyway realize.

Although it seems to me less that even the appearance of there having been sufficient real votes for the correct corporate selections to plausibly be presented as having won rigged elections matters any longer to the political lackeys of the Parasite Class, and far more concern over ensuring the dull acceptance - without questioning or protest by the masses - of their determined uses and fate intended by that Parasite class.

Drat, in my various wanderings back and forth absent-mindedly did some sentence reconstruction in the already-posted part and just realized (probably because the B-vitamins from the egg I belatedly had for 'breakfast' after 6 PM just met my brain, lol) that I've no idea whether it was just the one area or what exactly I did up there.

I think it was probably just adding 'mind-broadened' and substituting 'universally available to all' for something clumsier... Someday I'm going to actually get a decent sleep and finally test my theory about improved brain function, lol.

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0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.