You’re spot-on Mike. Naval does indeed have some pithy & useful aphorisms on status & wealth. Things we semi-evolved primates get obsessed with. But he got weird & self absorbed when he, and others, started taking his other musings too seriously. Yet again, money gets erroneously equated with wisdom. As for Naval’s thoughts on democracy being mob rule, sounds like he’s fallen under the spell of another dime-store Buddha whose ass you kicked in a recent debate - Curtis Yarvin. Fuck both of them. Cracks me up when folks who fancy themselves smart out-source their ideologies & thought processes to someone else.
“Watch out for mobs and communism!” cry the oligarchs funding the fascists. It is indeed 1920’s Germany and Italy, but not the way they say. Does that sum it up?
“Depth is the soul of understanding.” The depth of this careful and articulate analysis speaks to my soul that is currently demoralized and feels powerless. So your sustained effort to see clearly (through a glass darkly), pulling the historical threads seeking what is true as tested against the wisdom of the ages is an antidote to despair. Interesting too how the patterns of original insight ( not to be confused with wisdom), establishing a platform, finding an audience, and the subsequent flow of corruption through power, greed and ultimate deceit over the “vulnerable” you present seem to exactly match the trajectory of Christian Nationalism both covered by deniable culpability because a higher power/enlightenment deems it true.
they're all stupid, because they're overconfident, and their overconfidence made them saw off the branch they're sitting on, the american democracy. also, the engineers that you mention are stupid, inexperienced, *and* uneducated, since they reduce the complexity of life to compressed platitudes. a machine can solve complex math problems, implement algorithms, generate elegant proofs, it still is a stupid machine. the engineers are these stupid single purpose machines (i worked with them too).
THE PLATFORM FOR THE NEW “AMERICAN CITIZENS PARTY” (ACP)
Unlike the two existing parties, this one will address the enormous changes in our government and our way of life. I listened to the Democratic Party's discussion; is AOC too liberal? What about Bernie? Is he off the charts? Who should they run for president? They must create a platform that appeals to independent voters. Both existing parties are beholden to billionaire donors. ACP is a people's party formed, funded, and controlled by citizens. This will not be a Republican or Democratic party, but a party for those who want this party's platform.
This will not be a micro-change party; it will address mistakes made by our founding fathers and the necessary changes we have observed in our present history. It will be based on securing the defining statement in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that their Creator endows them with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This party will be a new, never-tried party in which the platform is developed by the voting public, independent of politicians and money people. This party will be called many things: communist, liberal, progressive, socialist, or any name the wealthy can think of that would hurt this party. I think the No King Walkers will like this new party.
This party has two objectives:
1.) protect the citizens of our country from foreign and internal adversaries
2.) care for the welfare of our citizens by providing public services and a robust social safety net for its citizens.
PLATFORM
• Establish protection against the wealthy from being able to infect this party. The maximum donation would be ten thousand dollars. I think Bernie did that in his presidential bid. No more from anyone or any organization.
• Establish a National Health Plan. More than Bernie's Medicare for all, this plan will provide comprehensive coverage of all medical services for everyone in our country, plus long-term care and nutrition programs for older adults and preschool children. This program would also evaluate medical services throughout the country and build and finance small hospitals in areas with smaller populations. This program will cover all medical needs of our citizens, including mental health, substance abuse, and services for glasses and hearing aids, as well as the cost of assisted living for seniors.
• Promote unions and support unions as a necessary part of our society.
• Increase voters' rights by increasing ways to vote.
• Have paid college for all and establish necessary guidelines for applying to college.
• Support free news stations
• Change the payment schedule in Social Security to an amount that will provide citizens with a reasonable retirement package and allow them to keep all their Social Security.
• Immediately defund and eliminate ICE, making any abuses by its agents illegal and subject to arrest, seizure, and prosecution.
• Remove the Electoral College and elect the president by popular vote.
• Establish a reasonable path to citizenship for all that will allow immigrants to work toward becoming an American citizen.
• Change the function of the Supreme Court, making its responsibility only to review the legality of the states' Supreme Court rulings. Remake the court to have nine judges and an age limit of 75.
• Establish a new way to select Supreme Court judges where we, the citizens, will have input and decision-making powers.
• Allow the House of Representatives to have the power to impeach the president with a majority vote.
• Stop all wars and insist that any aggression has to be approved by Congress by a majority vote.
• Reestablish a woman's right to control her body and have an abortion.
• Reestablish all citizens' protections removed by Trump.
• Protect and improve all our national parks.
• Eliminate all fossil fuel usage.
• Encourage the development of alternative sources of energy
• Increase income from new tax rates
a. Increase the tax rate to that of FDR in 1945 and President Eisenhower, which was 94% and 91% on taxable income of the wealthy
b. Raise the tax on corporations to 52% or higher.
c. Raise the estate tax to 70%
• Eliminate the Senate: The Senate was a bad bargain made by the Northern states to get the Southern states to sign the Constitution. The Senate is a ridiculous arrangement and has been a clog in our progress.
• Guarantee equal rights to all citizens independent of race, religion, or social background.
• Rethink the rules about our president. Trump has shown us the weakness in the definition and powers of the presidency. We should consider a way for the states to control or impeach the president directly.
• Secure freedom of religion.
• Acknowledge climate change and the warning of the world and encourage promoting changes to stop this warming.
• Take care of our natural resources, protecting them from being abused by money people.
• Establish guidelines for creating tariffs.
• Reestablish the national education department.
• Reconnect with our European partners and reaffirm our commitment to NATO.
• Reconnect with Canada and Mexico
• Stop all subsidies to Israel and support Ukraine in its war with Russia.
• Investigate all government employees for receiving financial profit while in office.
This is the first outline of this platform for this party and will not be the last. I think that this party should appeal to all citizens regardless of state or party affiliation. I think that with our new technology, cell phones and emails, we can devise a way for members of this party to vote on major revisions to this platform.
How to organize this party's development is above my pay grade. Still, I hope others with experience in developing this party will step forward to share their knowledge. If 200,000 citizens decide to contribute five dollars to this party, that would give us an operating budget of one billion dollars; that is the power of the citizens.
You’re spot-on Mike. Naval does indeed have some pithy & useful aphorisms on status & wealth. Things we semi-evolved primates get obsessed with. But he got weird & self absorbed when he, and others, started taking his other musings too seriously. Yet again, money gets erroneously equated with wisdom. As for Naval’s thoughts on democracy being mob rule, sounds like he’s fallen under the spell of another dime-store Buddha whose ass you kicked in a recent debate - Curtis Yarvin. Fuck both of them. Cracks me up when folks who fancy themselves smart out-source their ideologies & thought processes to someone else.
“Watch out for mobs and communism!” cry the oligarchs funding the fascists. It is indeed 1920’s Germany and Italy, but not the way they say. Does that sum it up?
“Depth is the soul of understanding.” The depth of this careful and articulate analysis speaks to my soul that is currently demoralized and feels powerless. So your sustained effort to see clearly (through a glass darkly), pulling the historical threads seeking what is true as tested against the wisdom of the ages is an antidote to despair. Interesting too how the patterns of original insight ( not to be confused with wisdom), establishing a platform, finding an audience, and the subsequent flow of corruption through power, greed and ultimate deceit over the “vulnerable” you present seem to exactly match the trajectory of Christian Nationalism both covered by deniable culpability because a higher power/enlightenment deems it true.
they're all stupid, because they're overconfident, and their overconfidence made them saw off the branch they're sitting on, the american democracy. also, the engineers that you mention are stupid, inexperienced, *and* uneducated, since they reduce the complexity of life to compressed platitudes. a machine can solve complex math problems, implement algorithms, generate elegant proofs, it still is a stupid machine. the engineers are these stupid single purpose machines (i worked with them too).
Naval is a fraud that speaks in broad generalizations as if it were deep wisdom. What a moron.
THE PLATFORM FOR THE NEW “AMERICAN CITIZENS PARTY” (ACP)
Unlike the two existing parties, this one will address the enormous changes in our government and our way of life. I listened to the Democratic Party's discussion; is AOC too liberal? What about Bernie? Is he off the charts? Who should they run for president? They must create a platform that appeals to independent voters. Both existing parties are beholden to billionaire donors. ACP is a people's party formed, funded, and controlled by citizens. This will not be a Republican or Democratic party, but a party for those who want this party's platform.
This will not be a micro-change party; it will address mistakes made by our founding fathers and the necessary changes we have observed in our present history. It will be based on securing the defining statement in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that their Creator endows them with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This party will be a new, never-tried party in which the platform is developed by the voting public, independent of politicians and money people. This party will be called many things: communist, liberal, progressive, socialist, or any name the wealthy can think of that would hurt this party. I think the No King Walkers will like this new party.
This party has two objectives:
1.) protect the citizens of our country from foreign and internal adversaries
2.) care for the welfare of our citizens by providing public services and a robust social safety net for its citizens.
PLATFORM
• Establish protection against the wealthy from being able to infect this party. The maximum donation would be ten thousand dollars. I think Bernie did that in his presidential bid. No more from anyone or any organization.
• Establish a National Health Plan. More than Bernie's Medicare for all, this plan will provide comprehensive coverage of all medical services for everyone in our country, plus long-term care and nutrition programs for older adults and preschool children. This program would also evaluate medical services throughout the country and build and finance small hospitals in areas with smaller populations. This program will cover all medical needs of our citizens, including mental health, substance abuse, and services for glasses and hearing aids, as well as the cost of assisted living for seniors.
• Promote unions and support unions as a necessary part of our society.
• Increase voters' rights by increasing ways to vote.
• Have paid college for all and establish necessary guidelines for applying to college.
• Support free news stations
• Change the payment schedule in Social Security to an amount that will provide citizens with a reasonable retirement package and allow them to keep all their Social Security.
• Immediately defund and eliminate ICE, making any abuses by its agents illegal and subject to arrest, seizure, and prosecution.
• Remove the Electoral College and elect the president by popular vote.
• Establish a reasonable path to citizenship for all that will allow immigrants to work toward becoming an American citizen.
• Change the function of the Supreme Court, making its responsibility only to review the legality of the states' Supreme Court rulings. Remake the court to have nine judges and an age limit of 75.
• Establish a new way to select Supreme Court judges where we, the citizens, will have input and decision-making powers.
• Allow the House of Representatives to have the power to impeach the president with a majority vote.
• Stop all wars and insist that any aggression has to be approved by Congress by a majority vote.
• Reestablish a woman's right to control her body and have an abortion.
• Reestablish all citizens' protections removed by Trump.
• Protect and improve all our national parks.
• Eliminate all fossil fuel usage.
• Encourage the development of alternative sources of energy
• Increase income from new tax rates
a. Increase the tax rate to that of FDR in 1945 and President Eisenhower, which was 94% and 91% on taxable income of the wealthy
b. Raise the tax on corporations to 52% or higher.
c. Raise the estate tax to 70%
• Eliminate the Senate: The Senate was a bad bargain made by the Northern states to get the Southern states to sign the Constitution. The Senate is a ridiculous arrangement and has been a clog in our progress.
• Guarantee equal rights to all citizens independent of race, religion, or social background.
• Rethink the rules about our president. Trump has shown us the weakness in the definition and powers of the presidency. We should consider a way for the states to control or impeach the president directly.
• Secure freedom of religion.
• Acknowledge climate change and the warning of the world and encourage promoting changes to stop this warming.
• Take care of our natural resources, protecting them from being abused by money people.
• Establish guidelines for creating tariffs.
• Reestablish the national education department.
• Reconnect with our European partners and reaffirm our commitment to NATO.
• Reconnect with Canada and Mexico
• Stop all subsidies to Israel and support Ukraine in its war with Russia.
• Investigate all government employees for receiving financial profit while in office.
This is the first outline of this platform for this party and will not be the last. I think that this party should appeal to all citizens regardless of state or party affiliation. I think that with our new technology, cell phones and emails, we can devise a way for members of this party to vote on major revisions to this platform.
How to organize this party's development is above my pay grade. Still, I hope others with experience in developing this party will step forward to share their knowledge. If 200,000 citizens decide to contribute five dollars to this party, that would give us an operating budget of one billion dollars; that is the power of the citizens.