24 Hours of being The Philosopher King

The idea of the Philosopher King was laid out in Plato’s Republic. The Philosopher King would, in theory, be a man who uses his philosophical knowledge and temperament to guide his politics and accompanying power. Plato eventually abandoned this hypothetical mode of government in favour of one with a greater distribution, and by extension, a greater dilution of power for any individual.

As a member of the demos, a plebeian, a lowly peasant if you will, but definitely not a member of the political class, I’m going to put forth some ideas that if implemented might for at least some time, make a better world.

On politicians and politics

One of the problems in modern politics is a serious lack of ‘skin in the game’ for the politicians. In this age of the Internet/Information overload, politicians are often given a pass that the lowly peasants would at least get a stern talking to or a summons for; it used to be that with great power came great responsibility. The responsibility portion of that equation now seems to have been tossed out the window of a moving car, as if it was an unwanted puppy.

The obvious response is to re-install consequence, and here are some ideas up for consideration:

1.)    For each million, insert currency here, printed outside of the government’s budget each and every political representative pays 1,000 Dollars, British pounds, Euros, or whatever is applicable.

1.1)  So if a billion extra dollars are printed each and every representative would be out $1M.

2.)    Any proposed legislation that is struck down by the courts imposes a moratorium on that politician’s next submission, the length of which is still to be sorted out.

2.1)  This provides for an anti-SLAPP[i] (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) like imposition on each and every politician.

3.)    Interest rates, a literal double edged sword, must be minimized when inflation out-paces wage increases, as the week-to-week people will take a hit which can/will render them homeless.

3.1)  High interest rates, coupled with high inflation stagnates cash flow thus causing the crippling of any society.

4.)    Policies have long term impact and as such the pensions of politicians are to be inversely linked to interest rates.

 

Another slice of the political pie is the civil-service. The civil-service is more than just accountants, actuaries, file clerks, lawyers, and statisticians; civil-servants are also influencers of policy.

1.)    Much like the credits at the end of a movie, credit must be given where credit is due for civil-servants and as such each and every piece of legislation presented needs to list all civil-servant contributors.

1.1)  Consultants paid out of the public purse can be listed like the ‘best-boy electrician’ is.

2.)    Policies have long term impact and as such the pensions of senior civil-servants are to be inversely linked to interest rates; police, firefighters and other public facing works would be exempt.

 

Of course, in this the current year, politics and money often go hand in hand, and this must be curtailed. There are two simple steps regarding money and politics to disentangle these two items: A) only those citizens who can be incarcerated can vote and/or donate, and B) anyone who receives an income from the government is bared from voting and/or donating the tier of government for which they work. I’ll break this down in the next few paragraphs.

 

Americans, you are pretty much the worst, or the best example of item A. America has limits on how much a single person can donate to a politician/party. Then came the idea of the Public Action Committee, or ‘Super PAC’ which allows for independent expenditures on the behalf of a politician or party; please cut the crap and just call this donating.

 

Organizational based donations to the government are to be stopped. Organizations can be companies, trade unions, None Government Organizations (NGOs), or other lobbyists. For example, the leaders of a company may donate to a political party that will create regulations within the company’s vertical. A number of outcomes result from this practice, such as: regulatory burdens that stifle market entry for new companies, a slowing of innovation due to the lack of innovation, a limiting of wage opportunities, and the profitability of shareholders. In short, this practice promotes the monopolization of any sector of commerce.

 

Item B is a safeguard against an over indulgence in self interest at the unwilling expense of others. Once the civil-service, the body of government, becomes large enough and is coupled with a large enough portion of the population reliant on social handouts a pseudo-majority is formed due to the apathy of many citizens. Any person or party hunting for power will simply for the sake of power leverage this combined cohort in their pursuits.

 

On Education:

The final exam for every high-school student, GSCEs for you British types, is the same exam that immigrants need to pass in order to obtain citizenship. This exam can only be changed by a national referendum once per decade, where each question is maintained, dismissed, or introduced by popular vote. Equally, if a migrant can pass a Canadian exam for a post secondary degree then that person must be handed that degree; as this seems only fair.

 

Of all the subjects taught in high-school, and below, history is the one most open to contention as history is typically written by the victors, and typically with a ‘we were not the baddies’ perspective. Of course, who the bad guys were changes under a new regime. For example it is claimed that three to five hundred Conquistadors subdued the Aztec civilization, made up of thousands; rather than a mass slaughter carried by a propped-up neighboring tribe seeking revenge for a prolonged demand of human sacrifices.

 

In a close second, in this the current year, is human biology; here an effort will be made to avoid a rhetorical argument as the intent is to provide an argument against rhetoric. Rhetoric is often used in advertising to impress upon the audience a feeling of ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’, more widely known as ‘when you buy this beer, you will get these attractive women’.  A more recent version of this argumentative technique is to shift the meaning of words to retroactively include something that the word never meant before; with the hope that no-one will notice or care. This can be seen in the abuse of the word ‘women’, as trans-women are now being crow-bared into the collective term ‘women’ at the expense of women.

 

Mathematics needs to be returned to pencil, paper and the blackboard for the junior grades. Additionally, PEMDAS/BEDMAS is both a lie and misdirection as it ignores juxtaposition; the equation ‘6 ÷ 2(1+2) = ?’ has raised controversy in that some people think the answer is 1 while others believe the answer to be 9. The basic question that needs to be made clear is if juxtaposition implies brackets or not; to test this, substitute X for (1+2) and use the two proposed answers on the right hand side of the of the equals sign and solve for X using the PEMDAS rules.

 

Still on mathematics, and this is a critique of society at large which started in my high school years with the introduction of calculators. Going back to the tantalizing conundrum of the equation, ‘6 ÷ 2(1+2) = ?’, when the equation is entered into Microsoft Excel it would look like ‘= 6 ÷ 2(1+2)’, Excel will suggests the rewrite ‘= 6 ÷ 2*(1+2)’ which unbinds the 2 from the parentheses. This is of course not the same if the 2 is bound to the parentheses by juxtaposition which in Excel would be expressed with the equation ‘= 6 ÷ (2*(1+2))’. The juxtaposition rule was provided to eliminate the need for writing brackets and now it appears that everyone is going to have to go back to writing brackets for the sake of having a clear mathematical grammar.

 

As for geography, someone once said something along the lines of: ‘America is in perpetual conflict to teach its people the geography of the world that they didn’t learn in school.’

 

Society and Socialization:

Politics was put first in this article due to its reach and power. Of course politicians can only derive their power from the society in which they operate. We have seen many times in history what happens when the people turn against the political; from Cesar, to the French revolution, Napoleon (twice), the Romanov family, Mussolini, Nicolae Ceaușescu, every Prime Minister ever voted out of office, and the occasional military coup.

 

‘Protected classes/characteristics’ in law, along with hate-speech laws are to be repealed[ii]. By creating protected classes a debatable hierarchy is formed and hate-speech laws simply seek to deny the ability for a person to show their true colours, all the while denying society the ability to know said person’s true self. Does anyone seriously believe that laws stifling a person’s speech will halt that person’s bigotry, or is it more likely to add fuel to that fire?

 

In law, all persons must be protected and no person may be more protected than others, thank you Mr. Orwell; children are exempt from this concept for they must be held with a special standing in society. Children are not allowed to drink, get tattoos, drive, or have consensual sex; as they are considered mentally innocent and therefore are by default to be protected due to lacking the ability to consent.

 

In addition, a penalty would be imposed for provably false accusations; a starting point would be the minimum penalty of the alleged crime being put forth for prosecution, once again the principle of anti-SLAPP comes into play. The dismissal of an accusation MUST NOT be taken as proof of a false accusation.

 

No organization self-identifying based on an immutable characteristic shall receive monies collected through taxation without ALL similar NGOs, of equal positioning, receiving an equal amount else the government be labeled ‘phobic’ and held to account. Tax exemption is, within the calculation of gross v. net monies and must positioned as an equivalent to tax money presentation, and as such must be treated with an equal non-bias consideration. The duty of any government is to serve and protect each and every citizen equally.

 

Beyond 24 hrs:

Andrew Breitbart is attributed with the quote, ‘politics is downstream from culture’ and yet it is the politicians who run the education systems, thus setting up an Ouroboros[iii] like situation. With regards to culture and therefore the politics, if Breitbart is to be believed, there needs to be a common underlying belief to maintain a cohesive and successful society, and this can’t be fixed in a day.

 

The introduction of a new belief or social narrative will upset the applecart of social stability and cohesion When a society’s narrative is lost the end of that culture is not far behind, or is that when a culture’s narrative is lost the end of societal collapse is not far behind; this chicken vs. egg problem does seem somewhat hard to crack.

 

In previous generations the narrative was ‘a better world for my children’ and now that message seems to be lost or least has taken a back seat to the much simpler ‘me’. This of course is not ubiquitous across all parents, for some have remained vigilant on behalf of their children, while others who in the past took an apathetic approach are now stepping up for various reasons; of course that previous parental apathy was the root cause for the reasons now under scrutiny.

 

Many countries and companies dedicate an entire month to celebrate in name what was once called a sin; social acceptance of this previous sin was gained under a moderate level of temperance by the original advocates is now facing social backlash under this new more zealous regime displaying public exhibitions that are well beyond affection. I posit that for those who held and still hold that original position of asking for normality and equality need to speak out against the zealots to keep the ground previously gained, and I can’t fix this at all.

 

Another choice that has been left to the adults in the room is personal health, as it should be; and yet so many of these adults who abdicated their responsibility towards self-health expect that others will makeup for their choices. While many people believe in progressive taxes based on wealth, I posit that clothes prices based on BMI would be the cause of many ‘mostly peaceful demonstrations’. Currently, demonstrations take the form of those showing their disappointment in the system do so by doing smash-and-grabs for jewelry, Nike shoes, TVs, and Louis Vuitton bags.

 

In short, as our society writ large and on some points individually, the Seven Deadly Sins[iv] have become the framing basis for our way of life in the West. In looking at the news I can’t help but see the 7-Sins on full display. For some reason I really like the word trebuchet though for metaphorical reasons the ballista is a better fit, as this machine of war is based on tension rather than gravity, as you will see.

 

Upon reflection, the duration of my life so far has seen an ever-tightening rope in society; and now it seems that rope has already been made wet to allow for more stretching thus creating more tension upon drying, which seems to be now; leaving me to wonder if our social/cultural ballista can withstand all the tensile forces being applied.

 

Tell me if you heard this before: massive public and private debt, high inflation, a shortage of housing, a shortage of an effective work force, declining population, and the ‘othering’ of identified groups; now decide for yourself what the near future will look like.

 

 

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[i] SLAPP suits – or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation – are actions typically brought by persons subject to public criticism in an effort to silence or intimidate their critics.

[ii] June 29^th 2023, The SCOTUS repealed Affirmative Action for University entrance.

[iii] The ouroboros or uroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.

[iv] The deadly sin are Pride, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Gluttony and Sloth