Post by Admin on Feb 10, 2014 20:06:07 GMT -5
Most boards that have the term "General Discussion" seem to have very little if any topics or discussions. If people don't know what to chat about then people will choose to chat about nothing. Its just the way it is. Then there is the matter that if general discussion is about everything then why have any other forum? Mine as well just have general discussion with no other board. If that is the case then what the hell is this board about anyway?
Believe it or not but politics is in everything we do now. There was a time that the government wasn't involved in our lives. That was many years ago before Woodrow Wilson changed all of that by introducing the Federal Reserve. The Great Depression also ushered in Keynesian economics which is nothing more than repackaged socialism to make it look like capitalism.
The truth is that the government now uses the NSA to spy on all of us. Also thanks to Obamacare the IRS is now watching our finances and making sure we stay poor and that we lose any hope of ever getting rich. Another problem is that technology is making it easier for the government to monitor everything we do.
Even if we ignore the fact that our own government is spying on us. We have to admit that our own government is now completely involved in our marriages, our businesses, our schools, our religion and many other aspects of our lives. There is very little left in our life that the government hasn't reached out with its tentacles. So why not discuss and chat about it. Who knows maybe we may come to an agreement someday.
With that I will leave you with some wise words from Socrates.
classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.7.vi.html
You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable.
Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose.
I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering --every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?
Of course, said Adeimantus.
Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State; for you understand already.
Certainly.
Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be far more extraordinary.