How Many Of You Actually Know Political Theory?

How many of you are just random citizens with opinions, and how many of you are educated people with some logic and reason behind what you're talking about? Because most of the people I talk to on here seem to be the random bar philosopher type rather than people with informed opinions. I'd have a lot less of a problem with conservatives, in fact I'd be much more sympathetic, if any of you had reason or logic behind what you say. Such arguments DO in fact exist, but it seems William F. Buckley was the last conservative in America to actually use them. Not once has anyone quoted Burke or the Comte de Maistre, Disraeli or Kirk. Opposingly I've never seen anyone justify government services using the Veil of Ignorance, an incredibly persuasive logic experiment, rather than an appeal to emotion or morality. Everyone seems to have forgotten the original and primary reason we use capitalism as laid out in The Wealth of Nations and thus are more likely to call for its abolishment without a second thought as to the severe consequences.

I mean FFS, even a fascist can make a semi-reasonable argument if they have knowledge of the theory - any autocrat can, as Thomas Hobbes is a rather hard man to argue with!

If even an absolute monarchy can be effectively argued for simply from reading Leviathan, why is it most of you make such poor arguments in favour of much more defensible positions? Do people simply not care, or does everyone think they've just got it 'figured out' on their own? Cuz I gotta tell you, most people are not naturally good at rationalizing.

 

I have a doctorate in political science and a masters in history so fire away.

 

Everyone on this forum is a political theorist, except for me. I am a political 'oracle'. Pay attention to my words.

 

"how many of you are educated people"
GAWD, I hate people who believe they are "educated" but wear Velcro shoes because of the complicated shoe strings.

Do me a favor.......take your doctorate/masters and wipe it/flush it!

Now you have a nice day now, ya hear.

 

Having a degree is kind of the definition of being educated.

An educated person would know that.

 

do you need to get an agricultural degree to know how to plant a garden in your back yard?

do you think those who do, will have better gardens than those who do not?

or is a garden, a garden?

some people like tulips, other people like roses...

do they need to become "educated" to appreciate either?

when you were on the swings as a child, were you busy thinking about the laws of physics and how that swing works, or did you just want a push higher?

did you enjoy or appreciate it any less without that knowledge of physics?

when you jumped off it to see how far you could get, did you calculate the distance and angle and force of your swing, or did you just let go and scream eeeeeeeee?

you remind me of a certain long haired ponytail guy in a movie... maybe you've seen it...

[video=youtube;VmRe_fK7pbw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmRe_fK7pbw[/video]

 

An uneducated person may jump off and break their leg whereas an educated person could calculate the angle and remain safer. An uneducated person can grow are a garden but an educated one can make it thrive.

 

If you can't tell by the responses on this thread, your thread reeks of arrogance and contempt for your fellow posters. As if(actually, no you really are saying) "Why are you so stupid?". Me, personally, my Political Theory knowledge is mostly "limited" to my knowledge of US Politics(I scored an 85% on CNN's test. Only missing a few that I would get on the next go around.) and my recent diving into political philosophies, be they Liberalism(to start), Libertarianism and now I'm a self-proclaimed Fascist-Technocrat.

So I'm quite vested in political knowledge, though I lack the physical proof that say Spooky has. But I'm sure Spooky nonetheless respects me as a poster(as I do him.). As for why people do not quote past authors of U.S Conservatism, that is because the political dynamic in the United States has changed.

Thanks to U.S Liberalism moving the goal post over the course of the last 25 or so years, it has become a "radically different America" as President Obama envisioned. Jobs are fewer, pay is more stagnant and the good ole revolutionary policies are frankly ineffective and helpless for the average middle class citizen.

Both the American Left/Right are brought and paid for by Special Interests in the US, primarily with election costs as a major factor. I'm of the belief that elections shouldn't really cost anything, or should be paid primarily out of a fund, as the American People shouldn't lose their capitol or the country's over the mere selecting of representatives.

Outside of those factors, because the political pendulum has swung so far out of wack, what is there to really "conserve"? I won't go so far as to say Christian philosophy is under attack, but clearly a defined religious-political viewpoint is being rejected in favor of a more secular politics. Which I do approve of, but it leaves the Right grappling for how to adapt. Conserving businesses? A fine venture in of itself, but the Right must now tread carefully in the face of Liberal objection to Big Money(objection, in name only anyway.) but this conservation has done less to preserve the union then it has in the past.

For who cares if a few businesses profit, if the workers who generated that profit do not have anywhere close to the same revenue-sharing? Stockholders in the USA in my opinion, must sign a "new American Contract" as Teddy Roosevelt once encouraged them to do. The Tea Party would be the right kind of people to uphold this for the GOP, but as you've seen they've been unfairly attacked everywhere.

So even in the areas where the Conservatives are leaning largely Liberal, they're not leaning enough(or rather, attacking certain "items" that the Dems find untouchable) and hence they can't find a place in either party. The Neo-Con warhawks are fine with their donors at the hip, and the Liberals do not recognize(or care to recognize) that they and the Tea Party fight the same fight. Mostly because the Tea Party simply attacks government waste that's preferable to the Liberal Party.

Which in of itself defies Liberalism(and hence why I summarily rejected it) in that Liberals became quite pro-establishment if it meant protecting certain items on the budget. That's how the most recent budget got passed, despite objection by government reformers on BOTH sides of the aisle.

To sum it up, Conservatism is in a state of confusion and must build new pillars for itself. And then these new pillars have to actually be accepted by the people for the party to be viable. Liberals aren't entirely wrong when they predict that as the Christian Right dies out, the GOP will have a limited to nonexistent voting bloc.

Where they get the prediction wrong, is they think they're going to step right in. With their anti-USA sentiment, all they will successfully do is divide government, as the Whig Party once did. Unless the GOP finds itself and is able to attract a Centrist-Moderate base, we're going to continue to have ineffective government, with ineffective policy, led by a political party that ultimately hates the country it resides in.

And so these are my opinions on the present political dilemma in America. A party that doesn't know itself and opposing it is a party that hates America and lukewarmly "embraces" whatever hollow coalition will reach 260(electorate votes). This isn't sustainable for the long run and will lead to the political collusion which will finally call for much needed reform.

It was never intended for the US to be governed by an "establishment" regime, as seen in the British Brutality leading to our revolt.

 

What are YOUR credentials?

 

The so called experts are no better than US.
many uni-made stock market experts are no better than random share traders.

 

Humility is completely absent in that OP, but the arrogance shines through.

 

The Internet is a big masquerade party, so, no one knows for sure if someone is a political theorist.

 

Political "science" is a complete and utter joke. If it really was a science, we would have come to agreements on what is best. And yet to this day we have made practically no progress. Everyone's opposed to everyone's version of the "science".

Please rename this field of study. Politcal "science" is probably the greatest insult you can give to the term science.

 

You hate people that take advantage of technology to free up time spent working on tasks you find complicated, like tying your shoes?

Shouldn't you be off somewhere building a barn with 300 of your bearded buddies?

Where I come from, educated people tend to specialize. In some, this specialization creates the delusion that their knowledge is advanced in other areas as well. This often creates situations in which they vehemently support something blatantly false.

Kinda like the idea that Velcro use is an indicator of intelligence...

 

The single best representation of the modern day internet I have ever seen was in last weeks episode of South Park, about Yelp Reviewers.

Kyle asked Cartman a question, whom was representing what he thought was the overall idea was shared by all. In fact, when the question was asked, 3 gajillion (made up) people all start talking at once thinking they are simply the most important thing since sliced bread. In reality, no one is listening and they really just want to hear themselves talk.

Good episode

 

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

― Thomas Jefferson

Meaning today that the power which educates is really the same that publishes papers.

The best things to read and understand are the framing documents.

I've done that, and have decided these two questions can only be answered one way by sincere, informed Americans, and such is both logical and reasonable.

Do you agree and accept that the framers of the founding documents intended for us to alter or abolish government destructive to our unalienable rights?

Do you agree and accept that the ultimate purpose of free speech is to enable the unity adequate to effectively alter or abolish?

What is more important to know;

Political theory or constitutional intent?

 

True enough regarding "masquerade", but to term such as an absolute is an attempt at a cognitive distortion of "all or nothing thinking".

Using reason and the facts of history as test removing the "mask" can be applied related to political theory and fundamental education into the prime intents of the constitution.

Do you agree and accept that the framers of the founding documents intended for us to alter or abolish government destructive to our unalienable rights?

Do you agree and accept that the ultimate purpose of free speech is to enable the unity adequate to effectively alter or abolish?

Masks hide all that is under them, and they are worn for different reasons. There is no good reason for a sincere American to not remove the mask for defense and enforcement if the constitution because the constitution and the republic for which it (should) stand.

 

I am a technocrat also. In fact, I made an entire political theory thread about the positives of a technocracy but it did not go anywhere which leads to the question posed in the OP. Most of us who know political theory do not have enough people who can speak at that level so we do not bother.

 

Having a degree is This is prejudice, and this is written in totoal support of what Modi stands for, and I have read several of your articles wherein you blindly have supported what Modi did uncritically. Though you seem somewhat attached to Nepal which you have mentioned in some of your articles now it seems clear that you are a blind devotee of Modi and his ideology.
You do not know the situation in Nepal. Your analysis is full prejudices and preoccupations. The IOC has stopped supplying fuel and as our NOC High offocial communicated to the IOC official they said there was an instruction from New Delhi to stop the supply. Your commenting on Nepal's current situation and giving your opinions which are totally swayed by your narrow bogus opinionated political thought. Read some articles written by some other veteran journalists and poltical thinker like Mani Shankar iyer so that you can purge your mind of the wrong ideas you have of a country which never knew slavery and always lived independently despite the fact its small physical geography.

Having a degree does not necessarily make you perfect or competent enough in a particular branch of discipline. It is your passions that give you a lot authority on a particular discipline regardless of having a degree in theoretical politics.

 

Part of political science is game theory which I can tell you for a fact is a legitimate science. When people like Nate Silver can use game theory to accurately predict events it turns into a much more important science then say anthropology.

 

Are you implying that all the people in the three branches of government are educated, and know political theory??? I can shoot that all to hell by asking one question. If they are so smart, why are we 18 TRILLION DOLLARS in debt????

Common sense and logic trumps so called education every time.

 

I've read enough political philosophy to know that the greatest political philosophers start with an opinion or hunch and then support that opinion with "reason" and "logic", usually coming up with a conclusion diametrically opposed to other great political philosophers who also use "reason" and "logic". What that means, simply, is that NOBODY knows what they are talking about when it comes to political philosophy and all are mere linguists. Cunning linguists, I say.

 

Political theory is different than philosophy though. Political theory does not really change, it is just book knowledge. Knowing the difference between Locke and Hobbs is theory while discussing who was right would be philosophy.

 

Okay, I get that.

 

Says the person who cannot distinguish between socialism as a movement and as a destination....and now you criticize people as uninformed because they are not engaged in the fallacy of making appeals to authority