The Cost of Patriotism!

[behavioralist]

Is it Treason when government exploits the governed?

When you are being paid to expedite the common will of the governed, you are privately as secretive as any thinking person. Doesn't this translate into the inevitability that you will hedge your bets by exploiting them?

For example, The Pentagon Papers: fabricating a war. And the Cold War, philosophical differences as a pretext for limitless industrial profits. And the trillion-plus dollar reaction to nine-eleven; money that could have been applied towards children's rights and the exposure and prosecution of pedophiles (my work in preemptive parental education certainly could use a few of those dollars).

Nothing is more destructive, more terrifying, than the cost of abusing children. There is no one working with children anywhere in any modern culture, who does not expect a child to be conditioned to where it cringes at his or her glare!

Simple remote control. Simple reliance upon children having been previously abused.

So isn't it likely that, given time (time already given long since), the exploitation of the governed becomes far more lucrative,

---than expediting their common will?

Won't any political leader, no matter how you vote, impoverish his nation further in his own self-interest?

How many corporations are queuing up at the doors of the elected to have their wheels greased for a reasonable consideration, covertly paid out? Would your guess tally with mine:every single one of those that survive?

The poverty of nations is the impossibility of conserving human potential during upbringing.

Thought (just like yours), the covert competing for rewards, is the poverty-induced fasting period.

When you can't have, you devote the time to thinking about having.

Thought is the mental equivalent of an empty stomach growling!

If you are stupid enough, you don't settle for that, but abuse the few things you can have, like the obese and otherwise addicted.

And it is not a question of not having what the wealthy have! It's a question of having what no one could possible conceive of!

---because of crippled human potential; abuse of children.

[White Crane Feather]

Good people do not seek power. The people that make differences will never be our leaders because our system rewards power seeking.

Whatch out for the witch hunt in your particular area of interest. If it does not follow the rules of evidence it can also be manipulated as a tool for those seeking to control others . Fear does that.

Edited November 18, 2012 by Seeker79

[Babe Ruth]

I understand your points Behavioralist, and they are all good, but I don't see the connection to "patriotism"?

[behavioralist]

I understand your points Behavioralist, and they are all good, but I don't see the connection to "patriotism"?

Please elaborate. What do we need to explore re: patriotism, that wasn't covered?

[Babe Ruth]

It seems to be more about treason than about patriotism, though I suppose you could say the presence of treason is the absence of patriotism?

What are patriots to do in the face of treason? When tyranny is abroad, is submission really a crime?

[+Liquid Gardens]

Is it Treason when government exploits the governed?

Not usually I don't think. It's better referred to as just 'exploitation', or more cynically as 'politics'.

When you are being paid to expedite the common will of the governed, you are privately as secretive as any thinking person. Doesn't this translate into the inevitability that you will hedge your bets by exploiting them?

I guess I don't understand the 'hedge your bets' part; the exploiters are hedging their bets against what that is undesired?

For example, The Pentagon Papers: fabricating a war. And the Cold War, philosophical differences as a pretext for limitless industrial profits. And the trillion-plus dollar reaction to nine-eleven; money that could have been applied towards children's rights and the exposure and prosecution of pedophiles (my work in preemptive parental education certainly could use a few of those dollars).

Nothing is more destructive, more terrifying, than the cost of abusing children. There is no one working with children anywhere in any modern culture, who does not expect a child to be conditioned to where it cringes at his or her glare!

Simple remote control. Simple reliance upon children having been previously abused.

I'm not quite following the child abuse tie-in to treason. Are you analogizing abused children to the exploited, and noting how they are both 'controlled'?

So isn't it likely that, given time (time already given long since), the exploitation of the governed becomes far more lucrative,

---than expediting their common will?

I don't necessarily see that 'exploitation' and 'expediting their will' are mutually exclusive choices, maybe if you had an example here. I know your post is supposed to be taken at a high-level, I'm not knocking you here, it's just to me 'exploitation' can manifest itself in many different possible ways. If you're referring to things like the War on Terror, that was a very (and 'too') expeditious implementation of the common will, and simultaneously there was/is undoubtedly lucrative exploitation also going on.

Won't any political leader, no matter how you vote, impoverish his nation further in his own self-interest?

How many corporations are queuing up at the doors of the elected to have their wheels greased for a reasonable consideration, covertly paid out? Would your guess tally with mine:every single one of those that survive?

Maybe not literally every single one, but I think I'm mostly in agreement with your gist here. Where I would differ is that there is a great deal of 'reasonable consideration' that no longer even needs to be covertly paid out. I think nowadays most of this consideration in return for their investment, sorry, 'political donation' to political leaders now takes the form of changes to legislation concerning taxes and government regulations affecting their industry or business and is not covert.

The poverty of nations is the impossibility of conserving human potential during upbringing.

Thought (just like yours), the covert competing for rewards, is the poverty-induced fasting period.

When you can't have, you devote the time to thinking about having.

Thought is the mental equivalent of an empty stomach growling!

If you are stupid enough, you don't settle for that, but abuse the few things you can have, like the obese and otherwise addicted.

And it is not a question of not having what the wealthy have! It's a question of having what no one could possible conceive of!

---because of crippled human potential; abuse of children.

I'm having trouble following this, I think just too many big topics and ideas all in just a few sentences, child abuse, thought, treason, addiction. 'Having what no one could possibly conceive of'? If no one including you can possibly conceive of it, how can you then know that 'it's a question of having' it?

[behavioralist]

Not usually I don't think. It's better referred to as just 'exploitation', or more cynically as 'politics'.

I guess I don't understand the 'hedge your bets' part; the exploiters are hedging their bets against what that is undesired?

I'm not quite following the child abuse tie-in to treason. Are you analogizing abused children to the exploited, and noting how they are both 'controlled'?

I don't necessarily see that 'exploitation' and 'expediting their will' are mutually exclusive choices, maybe if you had an example here. I know your post is supposed to be taken at a high-level, I'm not knocking you here, it's just to me 'exploitation' can manifest itself in many different possible ways. If you're referring to things like the War on Terror, that was a very (and 'too') expeditious implementation of the common will, and simultaneously there was/is undoubtedly lucrative exploitation also going on.

Maybe not literally every single one, but I think I'm mostly in agreement with your gist here. Where I would differ is that there is a great deal of 'reasonable consideration' that no longer even needs to be covertly paid out. I think nowadays most of this consideration in return for their investment, sorry, 'political donation' to political leaders now takes the form of changes to legislation concerning taxes and government regulations affecting their industry or business and is not covert.

I'm having trouble following this, I think just too many big topics and ideas all in just a few sentences, child abuse, thought, treason, addiction. 'Having what no one could possibly conceive of'? If no one including you can possibly conceive of it, how can you then know that 'it's a question of having' it?

You don't agree that deflecting taxmoney and attention from child-abuse is destroying the nation doing so? Politics is about people and nature enjoying the benefits of human potential,

and the antithesis of cultivating that potential is abuse of infants and children.

And the more children are abused, and the earlier, the more fantastic the lies and posturing they will believe,

so that most adults are not aware they were abused, including those who became prostitutes and can't recall their first sexual ordeal or their first drink of alcohol.

How you get that the common will may be to be exploited, I don't see. A personal political agenda?

Do people ever really agree to make economics a competition without being gulled into that agreement; especially when ther race is fixed?

Isn't any person's innate (before tampering with it) political ideal that ALL WEALTH SHALL BE COMMON WEALTH, and all grandeur shall be public grandeur.

[Babe Ruth]

The only crime defined in the US Constitution is treason, Article III Section 3, and it is very specific.

I'm not sure that exploiting the governed qualifies. It seems NOT to qualify in my reading.

Poor governance, probably criminal, but not really treason.

[G.Alex]

I have a few questions about patriotism. I would like to ask you to answer some questions below.

P.S. is a social survey that is needed for my article

Image of patriotism (true/false)

1. Please, write down a few sentences beginning with “When I think of patriotism, the following pictures come to my mind…”

True patriotism

____________________________________________________________________________________________

False patriotism

____________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Please, write down the title of a famous book, film, picture famous for image of true patriotism.

__________________________________________________

3. What is your one word associated with ‘patriotism'? (a related word)

True ____________________________________________________________

False ____________________________________________________________

Mentioning of age, sex and education is desirable

[Babe Ruth]

Since first reading this thread, I've become recently acquainted with the story of Edward Bernays who was employed by Woodrow Wilson in WWI as part of the Committee on PUblic Information. The purpose of that committee was to portray to the US citizenry that the war was a good thing because the US was "bringing democracy to all of Europe." That was apparently Bernays' phrase to the public.

His mission was to construct and deliver the government propaganda in such a way that the average american would indeed believe that the government was "bringing democracy to all of Europe", just the way Dubya et al told us we were bringing democracy and such to the poor Iraqis.

After the war, the new lingo developed by Bernays was "Public Relations", which was but a euphemism for the stronger term "propaganda". PR was propaganda, but they renamed it so that people would not connect the two.

Edward Bernays might be called the father of government propaganda techniques. Funny thing, he was related to Freud, and one of his statements was that the population had to be guided in their thinking and perceptions, "from above."

Edited May 13, 2013 by Babe Ruth