Sojka's Call

Let me start out saying I am not sure this blog title is a correct label for the discussion.  The readers of this blog have had many off-blog discussion threads lately about a cross-section of hot topics e.g. AGW, health care, social security, US deficit, Tea Party, etc.  Those discussions have taken the typical left-right, point-counterpoint, data vs emotion form of argument most of the time.  Very seldom is anyone's mind actually changed by the discussions in spite of each persons conviction in their "rightness" and no matter what manner of convincing argument or data set they present. In a previous post Sojka's Call: Democracy vs States Rights we discussed Spiral Dynamics and its relation to the current discussion.  A video of Wilbur was recently posted on a subject called Divine Pride.  Check the link to read the introduction and watch.  While I am having a little problem with his use of the term pride, I believe the concept he discusses is valid....

I am reposting this Tom Coumans article from the Daily Reckoning. The new war??? 1914 All Over Again? By Ton Coumans I am not one for art, statues or monuments. Most of these objects fail to touch me but every now and then I bump into something that sticks in my mind. Last summer I was drawn to the monument in the picture below, which stands on a square in Nevers - a beautiful city on the river Loire in France. I spent quite a long time studying it and I eventually took some pictures that, for some reason, I regularly review at home.                                                             WWI Statue in France You will have recognized that this is a monument commemorating the tribulati...

In some personal discussion threads about the Tea Party and US government corruption and the current military entanglements we find ourselves in my personal philosophy of the proper role of government has been severely questioned by my friends and myself. In thinking about this problem and reading up on history of our founding fathers and their intent as codified in the Constitution, various economic theories, and using must plain common sense many things are starting to become clear. My whole philosophy of what gov't should/shouldn't be is evolving radically right now. I have realized that as long as massive money and resources are concentrated for use by an entity (US Gov't in this case) it will be misused. 1. Our military is being misused. 2. Our treasury is being misused. If they are radically smaller than they are today the level of possible misuse is reduced the same. What does that mean? - a radically smaller military that is not capable of foreign inte...