Conversation of Our Generation

This is something I discovered in my life a while ago, and have not had a single way of saying until listening to Jocko Willink and Akira the Don's remixes of his talks. There's one song called Discipline Equals Freedom that caught my attention and concisely describe what I've been trying to say.

Health Freedom: If you want to be free to move about and to not have to take medicine every day or deal with chronic pain, you have to take your health into your own hands. Doctors can't do it for you, drugs can't do it for you. You must eat right, stay active, and be aware of what's going on in your body.

Economic Freedom: If you want the freedom to not worry about your finances or to be able to retire, then you must be disciplined in your actions and have a plan. You'll need a budget. You'll need a career path that allows you to grow. And, you'll need to make wise decisions with your money, so you'll have to learn how to do that.

Political Freedom: This comes whenever we stop needing the government to fix all of our problems. We are unhealthy so we need government to fix healthcare. We are broke, so we need government welfare. We are poorly educated by our government to understand these things so we need government to pay for our college. Instead, if we took action and didn't need the government for any of these things, we would be freer and more prosperous if the government weren't trying to fix our problems.

Our government system has corroded over the 240 years since our founding, but I think there's a chance for us to revive it a little bit. I do not trust that any reforms to her government that would really right the ship would ever happen, but I have a few ideas that could help.

Judiciary: The judiciary has become way too powerful as the arbiter of the constitution. They were never meant to be the last say on whether or not something is constitutional. They were meant to be a co-equal branch of government keeping the other two in check. I think a law could be passed to limit the scope and purview of judicial review.

Congress: I think there are two very simple fixes here. The Senate should be appointed by the states again and we should abolish the constitutional amendment that allowed them to be elected democratically. For the house, I think limiting the number of terms they are allowed to serve to four terms would also go along way. Then, if we could find a way to make it illegal for former Congress people to become lobbyists and ensure that the pay they get while in Congress is near poverty level, there would be little to no incentive other than goodwill to serve.

President: If we could pass a law overturning the Chevron rule, bills to limit the scope of the president's power, and stop military actions outside of declared war, I think that would really limit the focus on the president. Then, by empowering states and getting people in Congress who are truly passionate about the way the country is governed instead of helping themselves, we can make most of the federal actions fairly obsolete.

States rights: Once the federal government is very limited by these actions, we can focus on strengthening communities, towns, and individuals through proper channels that are local and specific to the needs of the people there.

As Trump calls off a meeting with the Taliban and the leaders of Afghanistan, we asked the questions: Why are we still there? When can we leave?

The first question is easy to answer for anyone who has little siblings. When a power rises up and begins to challenge you your best option is to use the minimal force necessary to put them down and get them to stop pestering you. When it goes on for a little bit, you may have to use the force necessary to send a clear message that you aren't messing around.

Germany: After World War II we rebuilt them so that they would not raise up again out of anger against the rest of the world. And, I've heard many people say that doing so after World War I would have prevented the second. I don't see the evidence for that, and I wonder if a better strategy would have been to help the rest of Europe that was affected and strengthen them against Germany.

Korea: I would argue staying in Korea is much different than Germany. Since the end of the Korean War, North Korea has been a threat to the southern half of the peninsula. Plus, China has also been a threat to the entire peninsula. If having a small presence prevents future full-on conflicts could argue in favor of the cost to have people somewhere in peacetime.

Afghanistan: We've been fighting a war there for 18 years, and it this point many of the people fighting could have been born after 9/11 happened. We have prolong the war through soft military tactics, and lent further credence to the idea that it is unconquerable. Instead we should find a way to leave, and I respect Trump's decision... despite the bad optics on the timing.

I find that today many people that I agree with on many things subscribe to the objectivist philosophy. It almost seems as if Ayn Rand is every libertarian-leaning person's favorite philosopher. Today, I'd like to talk about some problems I find with this philosophy.

Contradiction over objective truth- Every Objectivist I hear acknowledges an objective reality that we can only partially perceive through the senses and can only go so far to understand as reason and logic will allow us. I agree with this, however, I find that when it comes to morality, they balk at the idea of an objective standard that is applied to individual situations.

Relativistic morality- There is objective truth regarding unseen forces all around us like gravity or radio waves, and morality is no different. The social interactions between people has a right and wrong way of doing things. It is in the application of universal principles to individual circumstances that we find what is right.

Hierarchy of Virtues- This means that there is a hierarchy of virtues that exists for all people the same. It has to be sought after as rigorously as any other truth we may know. We have to follow arguments to see why some actions are ok for certain people in certain situations when in other situations it would be wrong.

Today we discuss why America's history is not a story of racism, but one of triumph over racism, though it could have been faster to do so. This is in no way to belittle the struggles of victims of racist policies, institutions, or individuals. Rather it is the recognition that despite man's innate fear of others, we found a way to look beyond tribes and become one America.

Washington: While Washington did own slaves, he fought to free this nation. Then, when he became president twice, he stepped down and relinquished his power when he could have been king.

Jefferson: His story is actually a bit more complicated than Washington's. He was actually not the true owner of the slaves he owned. Rather, most were the inheritance he received that did not account for the massive debt he'd accrued. Thus, creditors owned his slaves and most everything else Jefferson owned.

Despite all this, he was one of the Founding Fathers most in favor of the spreading of newly founded rights to as many people as possible.

Lincoln: He did not set out to get rid of slavery in the Civil War, although he was an abolitionist, but he did end up doing so. His intention was to preserve the union and in doing so did a lot of legally and constitutionally dicey things. He suspended Habeas Corpus and denied southern states their right to self-government. When people are being "owned" by others, something must be done to intervene

It's all too common to hear Conspiracy Theorist thrown around as if it is an argument stopper. However, it's just another example of ad hominem attacks that result from a little cognitive dissonance. The two sources of this dissonance are a total trust in the media and an "official report" as well as an inability to believe people are capable of such conspiracies and the depravity they point to.

Today, we'll discuss why it's ok to ask questions and how to do it in a way that doesn't make you sound crazy. Plus, I'll give you some ammo to push back on the "conspiracies never happen" idea.