Robert's Radical political Ideas

December 12

The True Cost of Freedom

Here in the U.S., we have all heard the refrain that "Freedom is not free." That has become a sort of social meme that has taken root in this culture. The implication is that some of us need to sacrifice our lives, or our freedoms in order to protect us from our enemies who otherwise would quickly take over our nation and take away our freedoms. In my humble opinion, this is utter nonsense perpetrated by militaristic elements in our culture whose goal is to engage in cultural imperialism. This is a way of helping to keep our nation militarized. Actually, the United States is an extremely secure nation, which only borders on two other, non-threatening nations, Canada, and Mexico. If people feel a credible threat to our current freedom, that is a matter of paranoia. If there are organizations in this world who wish to take away our freedom, such as terrorists, they are most likely responding to the projection of military might by the U.S. And if we were actually invaded in some way by a credible threat to our freedom, we are quite capable of responding to the threat, and would be even without having a large military industry.

Thus, we need to have a discussion in this culture about not only the role of the military in it, but also, the nature of freedom and its true cost. In my previous post, I mentioned that there are three types of freedom -- freeedom of action, freedom of thought, and freedom of emotion. As Cognitive Psychology and the success of Cognitive Therapies teaches us, the most important freedoms are the mental ones, freedom of thought and freedom of emotion. In the words of Franklin Roosevelt, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," not fear of terrorists, or any other enemy, for that matter. It is freedom of thought which makes other freedoms possible.

Given this understanding of freedom, what does it take to be free? I assert that the true cost of freedom is that we take responsibility for our freedom, individually and collectively. It is really pretty simple. Freedom is an adult frame of mind. It means that the individual is responsible for the effects of her/his thoughts, feelings, and actions, and it also means that we have a collective responsibility for taking care of our nation in a democratically responsible manner. Freedom is something that has to be learned.

For example, I put some of my recent posts critiquing the internet and MySpace in particular on my MySpace page. Previously, I had about 10-15 people who were regularly reading my MySpace blog. As soon as they saw these posts, it went down to zero. I was wondering how people on MySpace would respond to some honest criticism and self-reflection, and I got my answer. MySpace is all about escapism, living an alter-ego life, and reveling in sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. I have a sense of humor, and most of my posts on MySpace have been humorous, but at some point, some serious self-examination is needed. Obviously, self-examination is not welcome on MySpace. As long as MySpace culture does not allow for self-examination, the problems that it creates will not be dealt with from within. Only an external source will change what takes place on MySpace. I take responsibility for what I have written, which was written in an attempt to help improve the culture of the internet. If no one wants to read my posts on MySpace anymore, or even if no one wants to be my friend on MySpace anymore, that is okay with me. Frankly, I realize that I am not a MySpace person. I will probably soon cancel my MySpace account, although I have connected with my cousin Robert and a few other people through MySpace. I plan to start an account on another site such as Tagged were honest intellectual discourse is possible. I may start one for Eunice on another site, as well, but not on MySpace. There is no need for me to apologize for or feel badly about my honest attempts to help make the internet a better place. In fact, my recent experience makes me even more determined to do so.

Taking responsibility, not only for one's actions, but also, for ones thoughts and feelings, is a crucial component to psychological well-being, at least as an adult. Most, if not all, psychological disorders have an emotional component. Thus, psychotherapy involves taking responsibility for one's emotions; only then, can one change one's own emotions. Psychotherapy also teaches people to take responsibility for their thoughts. The way a person perceives the world -- one's world view -- shapes a person's life. A psychologically healthy person has a healthy world view. Taking responsibility for one's own way of thinking about the world, and our various thoughts, is a tremendous, adult responsibility. So is taking responsiblity for all of one's own actions. But remember, thoughts and feelings lead to actions, so each individual needs to learn to take responsibility for all three. And even more, we need to take collective responsibility for the world we create together. These are the true costs of freedom. Taking responsiblity means -- individually of collectively -- admitting when we are wrong, and taking steps to correct our errors. If we do not take responsibility, reality will ultimately force us to rethink how we view it, so, think often, think well, and think freely, then take responsibility for your decisions.

December 10

Reframing Freedom

In psychology there are two very important threesomes. One is the ABC of psychology. The "A" stands for affect, which means emotion. The "B" means behavior. The "C" means cognition, which refers to thought processes. The other triad refers to the three major factors in development, nature (biology, mainly genetics), nurture (environment including other people), and free-will. Today, I will elucidate the nature of free-will from my psychological perspective.

Several psychological perspectives deny the existance of free-will. However, no psychological perspective could be complete without taking into account the role of free-will in our lives. The only two psychological perspectives which do posit free-will are the Humanistic Perspective and the Cognitive Perspective, which is a major reason why I prefer these perspectives to the others.

Freedom of speech, of course, is an important issue regarding the internet. So far, speech on the internet has been extremely free, at least in most nations. While this is good for uninhibited communications, those so inclined have taken advantage of the wide-open free speech of the internet to clutter it with free pornography, foul language, and incitations to others to commit antisocial acts, as discussed in recent posts. As with other rights, there are limits to freedom, including free speech. What is free speech for some may be offensive and even oppressive to others. For example, attempting to conduct a serious discourse on the internet becomes burdensome when one needs to wade through oceans of profanity, and attempting to find like-minded pals on the internet becomes scary when it results in endless proposals by nude internet models and unwelcomed advertisements offering "no strings attached" extramarital sexual activity. I have had exactly these problems in dealing with MySpace, which according to its own description, opted to use a "meat market mentality"for young persons, along with "provocative profiles" in order to attract large numbers of site members. This strategy, along with major doses of whatever is new and exciting in pop culture and celebrity, has turned MySpace into a very popular website, but a very problematic one in which the negative influences of MySpace culture seem to far outweigh any socially redeeming value that it may have. This is a shame, given that the large majority of people who are members of MySpace are probably good people at heart, and many of them are attempting to do good things there.

Freedom of speech is a behavioral freedom. When people talk about freedom, they usually mean freedom to behave as they wish. However, there is also freedom of thought and freedom of feeling. The ABC of psychology applies to freedom, and there are 3 types of freedom, accordingly. People who are being told what to think through propaganda or personal persuasion, are having their freedom of thought impinged upon. For example, when we as members of a society are bombarded throughout our lives by statements which indicate a certain sets of beliefs, our freedom of thought is being compromised. If parents show disappointment in children who do not adopt the same religious beliefs as their own, that is impinging upon their freedom of thought. Similarly, when others use coercion to influence a person's emotions, freedom of emotion is being impinged upon. Emotionally manipulative people are often experts at doing this. A person may make a family member feel guilty, for example, even when the family member has done nothing wrong, in order to get the family member to do something. Alternatively, an emotionally manipulative person may temporarily act loving toward another person in order to elicit positive emotions and favors from that person. Manipulating others by constantly derogating them also occurs in some instances; in fact, this sort of treatment of children constitutes a form of child abuse called emotional abuse. Emotional manipulation also occurs at the macro level as well. For example, using the anger elicited by the terrorism of 9/11/2001 to incite Americans to invade Middle Eastern nations is a blatant case of emotional manipulation carried out by the Bush administration. Ultimately, during all of this political outfall resulting from the terrorism, many people become constrained in their emotions -- not to feel the need for vengeance becomes unpatriotic, to feel some sympathy for Muslim peoples becomes unpatriotic. Thus, all of our freedoms, affective, behavioral and cognitive, are constantly being "framed" in a very real sense, limited in one way or another; all freedom is relative. Not only is freedom relative, but it may also conflict with other rights which are beneficial to our well-being, such as the right to a decent, representative government which is concerned with the welfare of its citizens, and the right to public education and a well-informed public whose citizens do not engage in the intentional harm of other citizens for personal gain, which is the definition of aggression.

Consequently, I have long ago concluded that the best solution to the freedom issue is to encourage freedom, just as democracy is to be encouraged, not by a lack of regulation making life a sort of "free-for-all," but by having rules, laws, and regulations which allow people to make decisions which please themselves, and to think and feel in ways which are free and appropriate, as long as it is done in ways which do not infringe upon the freedoms or the well-being of others. Doing things which we know will annoy or detract from the well-being of others may not be illegal in many cases, but it is not morally correct, and should be regulated when given the opportunity so that such behavior is minimized. This is an area at which the internet could do far better than it has so far. Thus, for example, materials which are known to be harmful, such as advertisements inciting people to commit adultery, should not be allowed on the internet. If we can ban cigarette advertisements from television, why can we not ban home-wrecking advertisements from people's computers? Also, speech inciting others to commit illegal and/or antisocial acts, or to commit suicide, should not be allowed on the internet. Another example is that there should be a more convenient and cost-free way, at least, of preventing minors from being exposed to internet pornography. I am sure there are many other examples of ways in which the internet could be better regulated with which I am less familiar.

The take-home message from all of this is that the freeist society is a well-regulated, caring, progressive, democratic society, which is tolerant of our differences as long as they are not harmful to us as a society, and which values free-thinking, progress, science and loving relationships, and which attempts to be economically fair with a sustainable, decent standard of living for all of its members; it is not some sort of unregulated free-for-all in which the greed of one -- greed for money, power, recognition, or hedonistic pleasure -- outweighs the freedom of another. Furthermore, the most important freedoms we have are in our minds, not our actions. It is the freedom to explore the world of ideas and feelings in the search for meaning and self-actualization. No one can take this freedom away, but only you can grant it to yourself.

December 9

Reframing the Right to Privacy

The issue of the right to privacy has always been troubling to me. The internet is a major example of an institution where this issue is relevant. Clearly, we have a right to privacy, when that means having the right to think for oneself and feel one's own emotions, without fear of arbitrary retribution. Clearly, we a right to act on our own without being besieged by rumor or gossip (as are many celebrities), propaganda, annoyances such as constant advertisements which cannot be ignored, or arbitrary retribution, as long as our actions are not destructive and contrary to the public good. However, we also have a right to have a government which represents the public and operates for the public good, and a right to education and a well-educated public who are concerned with the public good. That does not mean that we must put others ahead of ourselves, but that our actions not intentionally harm others (which is the definition of aggression). As with other rights, there are limits to the right to privacy. When I think about it, it becomes clear that anytime a person plans to intentionally harm or deceive another, it happens under the cloak of the right to privacy, and that is the big problem with privacy, the conundrum.

I assert that a person should not have the right to privacy when:

1. Commiting a crime which causes intentional harm to another or others;

2. Preparing for or contemplating a crime which causes intentional harm to another or others;

3. Deceiving others for personal gain (as happens so often on the internet);

4. Behaving in a self-destructive manner, whether intentionally or not;

The first point is clearly covered by law, and the person commiting a crime is considered to have abdicated the right to privacy. However, a person who makes preparations to commit a crime, or talks about commiting a crime, often claims right to privacy, as do people who engage in deception of others or even self-destructive behavior.

To reframe the question of privacy: Which has primacy, the right to privacy, or the right to have a society and a public concerned with the public good? I would say that the public good precedes the right to privacy. Without a society which promotes the public good, our privacies and freedoms are seriously compromised, and perhaps even meaningless.

An individual does have the right to privacy when:

1. Thinking honest thoughts;

2. Feeling honest feelings;

3. Behaving in ways which are not intentionally harmful to any other person;

Clearly, some types of behavior are culturally sanctioned as being private, in some cases, culturally universal, such as sexual relations, elimination of bodily waste, or the display of parts of one's body involved in sexual relations or elimination of bodily waste. Nearly all cultures have a taboo against public nudity, public sex, or public elimination of bodily waste. Moreover, any other behavior which does not knowingly impinge on the welfare of others is one each individual has the right to engage in privately, which also means the freedom to choose. However, ignorance is no excuse. To give a few examples: A person who smokes just upwind from a non-smoker cannot argue that "well, I didn't think the other person would mind." The smoker should know better. People who cheat on their spouses by having sex with someone else cannot reasonably make the "consenting adults" argument; if they are honest with themselves, they know they are hurting their spouses, whether or not the spouse is aware of the extramarital sexual activity. In fact, they are probably hurting other persons as well -- children, parents, siblings, in-laws. Furthermore, sexual promiscuity engaged in by single persons could be argued to hurt the person's potential future spouse in very real and serious ways -- STDs or unwanted pregnancies, for example.

Thoughtless self-absorbed actions, lacking in empathy or compassion, do hurt others. The individual has a moral obligation to take this into account. This is not necessarily a legal issue, but it is a moral issue, an issue of human relations. If one wishes to have good relations with others, as any person should, one should live an "open life," not one of plots and deceit for personal gain. A person who is doing nothing wrong should have nothing to hide and should not mind that others are aware of his/her thoughts, feelings, and actions. In fact, we go to much trouble to communicate our thoughts and feelings, through our actions. and try as we might, wish as we might, people cannot read our minds. To this extent, we are trapped in a private inner reality, and the conscious, intentional attempt to break out of this trap, making the private public is what marks us as sentient, caring, intelligent beings.

November 10

Rethinking the Political Process: Moving Beyond a Two Party System

This is one more post topic about the political process before I move on to other topics, one that has been weighing on my mind more and more as time goes by. Other nations, or parts of this nation, have shown us that there are other ways to conduct an election, ways which may work better than the system we have. The system that we do have in the U.S. is essentially the same one it has had from its inception. Unfortunately, American pride and the belief in American exceptionalism, along with political inertia, have thus far prevented our people and our government from amending this process, even though better systems appear to have taken hold in many places. This is rather analogous in my mind to the inertia of Chinese culture, which was the world leader in innovation during early periods of civilization. China only recently has begun to wake up from its long cultural slumber, roused out of its cultural stasis by the impact of other nations which have passed it by technologically and socially. Yet China continues to use an inefficient, difficult to learn, pictographic writing system, for example. The United States is in danger of becoming the political equivalent of China's resistance to change, worshipping its political system much as the Chinese used to worship their emperors, whom they called "sons of heaven" no matter how little they deserved such worship.

The "winner take all" system for all elections set up in the constitution by the founding fathers of the United States, results in a two-party system; in each election, either one or the other wins, for many years now, either Democrat or Republican. There is little room for any other party to gain a political foothold. This really becomes a problem when special interests influence both parties in the same way, or when both parties accept the same premises and conventions such as insisting on having the world's strongest military, with a variety of bases all over the globe, or setting up an economic system which encourages corporate monopoly and political influence. Those who disagree have little recourse, other than to vote for a member of a "third party" we know is going to lose, such as a Green Party candidate or a Peace and Freedom Party candidate. We can complain, but are largely ignored, and cast as strange eccentrics with outlying opinions, even when those opinions are actually commonplace, especially among those who really pay attention to what is going on in our society.

What can we do to have more political influence by the growing numbers of "wee people" with opinions diverging from the conventional memes of the 2-party system? We can start changing the way politics is done, or at least vociferously suggest it to our politicians. They may not like it, but at some point, they will have to listen. Here are some practices which have been applied in various places with success, which get more parties and a greater diversity of political viewpoints involved in sharing power.

1. Taxpayer financed elections: Rather than having individual donors, lobbyists and corporations finance candidates of their choice, every taxpayer pays a small amount, which is divided equally among the candidates. This is a system which is being used successfully locally in several parts of the U.S. including Portland, Oregon, where radio talk show host Thom Hartmann lives. Remember John McCain and his attempts at campaign finance reform? He apparently gave up and ran a conventionally funded presidential campaign, with heavy corporate backing. Those attempts in Congress were basically the equivalent of putting band-aids on a bullet wound, anyway. Taxpayer financed elections represents true reform, and it may be able to garner considerable public and political support if enough people start talking about it. With equal funding, parties other than the Democratic or Republican parties can have a reasonable chance of winning elections. The quality of the message will be what sways election results, not how often the message is heard.

2. Proportional representation by party: The more people vote for a particular party, the greater the number of its representatives serve in government. This system is used in many other nations successfully, so that there is a much greater diversity of political viewpoints represented in government. I am not sure what the details are concerning how the individual representatives are chosen, but I know this involves voting for a political party and its positions on the issues, rather than voting for individual candidates. Thus, once again, the issues matter more in this system, and the cult of personal popularity matters less, than in our current American system.

3. Fusion Voting: Found in New York state, fusion voting is when the same candidate can be represented by two parties. For example, one could vote for the Green Party; however, lets say the Green Party also endorses Barack Obama, so the vote would count toward the Green Party, helping it gain a foothold with public funding and publicity, while Obama gets the vote.

4. Instant runoff voting: In this form of voting, also successfully used in many other nations, people rank order their choices for a political office. If a person's first choice does not exceed some criterion, then that choice is eliminated, and the vote is given to the second choice, and so forth, until their is a clear winner. This method gives "third party" candidates a greater chance of winning because one of these may be the second choice of a great many voters, in a particular election, so if there is no clear winner among the first choices, second choices may determine the election. For instance, if there is a third candidate who draws many votes from the two major party candidates, that third candidate will be the winner if enough people make that candidate their second choice.

5. Note being afraid to vote for other candidates: Obviously, if enough of us vote for a candidate, no matter what party that candidate belongs to, that candidate will win. As I wrote recently, I believe there is no such thing as a wasted vote. People should vote according to their consciences. I have voted for many third party candidates, mostly Green Party ones. The more people vote for a party, the more political leverage it gets. In 1992, I voted for Patricia Schroder, a Democratic Congresswoman from Colorado that I liked, as a write-in candidate for President, because I knew that Clinton would have problems overcoming his womanizing ways and be given grief for it, plus I was not terribly thrilled with him, anyway. No, Pat Schroder was not running for President, but at least I gave my own little idiosyncratic message in that election -- and I get to write (or left) about it here.

I am not an expert on election practices, and do not have time at the moment to look up more information about these practices, but I do know that all of these practices are workable. They may be easier to implement initially at a local level of government, a bottom up approach rather than a top down approach. I am sure one can find out more about them by doing internet searches. Remember, political systems do change over time. It takes some changes longer than others to actualize, but reforms and improvements are eventually made. Democracy is a representative form of government. That means it is our government, and we are ultimately in charge of it as a people. Don't forget that.