Godwin's Law Of Public Discourse (2)

Mike Godwin stated that when an online discussion
reaches the stage of one party calling another
a Nazi, or finding some apparent consistency
of virtue in some part of Third Reich regulations
-say their virtuoso book keeping skills-
then the argument has reached a level of absurdity
from which agreement cannot be retrieved.

But the same is now true for right wing
populist governments of a more modern hue,
as democracy and progressive government
seems to be part of a tide that is retreating
and government take more control
of what the public knows about them
as they put more public services online.

Tired citizens who disagree with the media
under these right wing led governments
find themselves unable or unwilling
to find good in what their government does
and find saying bad things is useless;
it does not make the government go away
and does not change the (lack of) reason
that is the principle by which they are ruled. 

Synthetic Worlds

In a world where it is normal
for governments to foment synthetic feelings
in it's citizens through their presence in the media 
and through the choreographed public actions,
designed to be easy for citizens to mimic and repeat,
we should be no more surprised
when a member of the government dies
and we don't feel grief, we don't feel anything,
even as we predict being told to display grief with conviction.

We did not feel joy when the state taught us to display joy either,
constructs that outlast human life have no human life in them.
. 

Nationalise Stupidity

The act of nationalising a product
or an industry is the process
where a government buys up
all the available stocks/supplies
of this or that asset on behalf
of what they perceive
will be a grateful nation.

In their confidence, governments
like to create deference towards them
a sort 'yes man' subservient voter
who will approve of the self interest
of those in power, over his own interests.

Furthermore, governments like to conflate
'yes man' deference with reasoned gratitude
to the point where the public can't distinguish
between being thankful with good reason
and being broken down, mental decrepitude.

That is why I want my government
to nationalise one of most abundant
human resources we have left,
in their own deep self interest
I want them to nationalise stupidity.

Think of the infinite unity
supported by us collectively
making bad decisions-
not realising how bad they are.....
 

New Lies For A New Year

Today I learnt a new term
for politicians who defensively lie
about their political opposition,
though I knew how the lie worked
before I learnt the term; 'strawmaning'.

The lie works the following way
Politician A 'I propose proposition X'
Politician B 'You do know Politician A that Proposition Y won't work?'.

In this verbal process Politician B simultaneously
misrepresents and discredits Politician A's proposal
and criticises the now distorted idea for being weak,
furthering giving themselves credit for being right
and making their opponent seem wrong
whilst avoiding sharing what might have been
an internally consistent position all along.

This process has both driven and confounded
the negotiations for Brexit from the beginning
and along with false assumptions in the UK
about how absolute absolute rule in the UK ever was
has brought politics and representative democracy
to a stand-still where the gain-sayers of whatever is proposed
stop all they dislike, and produce no position of their own.   

Targets

are what governments take arms against
via radio and television when the citizens
they supposedly serve 'demand action'
-that is they press The Press to renew
the good news about how the statistics
for everyday life are constantly improving.

Little do many citizens realise
that as the subject of these statistics
what the numbers say is about them
and they are the actual government target.

The government don't want more jobs
or for ordinary people to actually live better.
All they want is for the statistics that by law
they have to release to be more effectively divorced
from the reality they are meant to represent. 

A Choice Of Bad Government

The consensus of stupidity known as Representative Democracy
is the system that the wealthy West relies upon for it's wealth, at present.

But it is not the only way that we might be ruled,
monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy and mob rule
have all had their run, and all of them could return
-depending the mix of wealth and charisma
of the speaker a political party chooses.

The greater the level of charisma and wealth, the easier 
the concentration of the potential for corruption in fewer heads,
which claim to be all-wise and all-knowing,
the harder it gets to prove their corruption.

Government is the problem we can never fix.

The Immaculate Government

When every link in a chain of command
of a given government department
cannot fail by the criteria each link
sets for itself, and the public still find error
in how the government actually operates
then of course ministers will publicly defend
every stage of so perfect a process.

Thus, by inference, ministers blame the public
for finding mistakes where none can admitted.

For as long as everybody refuses to say
how all gov't departments work perfectly
against each other the public's malcontent
rumbles on never finding it's present day cause.

A Choice Of Absent Government

I was chatting with a friend recently,
and explained that I might be absent
from them for a while-the government
had some forms that it needed me to fill in,
and further, it might well want
to interview me at some length.

My friend replied 
'You do know the government is in chaos?'.
It was only later the same day that I realized
that I didn't know which arm of government he meant.
All government, national, regional, and local,
are presently in a state of prolonged semi-collapse
with no sign of a return to a sense of direction in sight.
.
The civil service are what has always held the country together.

Micro-Dystopias

I don't believe in memes,
I simply don't accept the theory,
but where I find evidence
of how insincerity runs the world
I will make an exception.

New Snipes For Old

I often read the opinions of Republicans
in many countries decrying their government
from the position of opposition, via the press.
They snipe at the actions of those in power
as if with their new wealth, but no power,
they feel it is right to publicly complain
about perceived threats to their privilege.

If those complaining got their way
what would they replace the current lot with? 
A new system that was at least as badly bent,
the better to improve reasons for complaining?  

Putting Scientific Logic Into Politics

Because if there were no logic in Party Politics it would be too clear it is nonsense....

Taxation and Misrepresentation

I can live with democratic misrepresentation
-that is predictable with the distance
our representatives live from those they represent.
What I find harder to accept is institutional
tax avoidance, as if it were an fixed obligation
to pay as little tax as possible, and if asked
to justify it say 'The state would only waste it
on welfare claimants anyway'. The active death
of a sense of civic duty towards society
has now reached the stage where the states
employees do not pay the taxes
they do not want to, to the government.
Perhaps when nobody pays any tax
because the law is nothing loopholes
there still be no such a thing as society.

Plu Ca Change...

Russian Communism
was an attempt at spreading
altruism tried by people
who had rarely experienced
the generosity that they
were trying to project,
which wrought new symbols
for the old meanness,
and very little else.