April 15, 2008 – 12:07 am
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The issue of the principal of sovereignty is an issue that inspires some of the most intense ideological debates within society. Sovereignty is a concept that every society has its own definition of – in some parts in European society, sovereignty is derived from the just consent of the governed, or the ‘general will’. In other parts of European society, sovereignty is derived from one central power that is capable of overriding all other powers, or the ‘Leviathan’. In some parts of Islamic society, sovereignty is derived from ‘al-Sunnah’, or the will of God. In different societies there are different methods for determining who is the sovereign in that society, in order that any decisions can be acted upon with the consent of the most people possible within the group of people. This is the question of the principal of sovereignty. The answer for the question of what is the true constitution of sovereignty, whether the sovereign derives his sovereignty from ideas or violence, ultimately can be distilled from determining who is it that makes decisions in a given group, and why is it that their decisions are respected by the members of that group. Although ultimate sovereignty always lies with the people who are physically able to dominate the people in their group, in any given situation a person is sovereign if they receive respect from the people that they make decisions for; this readily allows for multiple sovereignties that are tied together by one sovereign capable of the legitimate use of violence.
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If you go to say Motley Fool the popularization of Yale Hirsch’s “Don’t Sell Stocks on Monday: An Almanac for Traders, Brokers and Stock Market Investors” promoted to you will be “Beating The Dow” Michael O’Higgins. Other sites push Harry S. Dent jr. and no doubt other authors are out there too pushing their works. I know of at least three other authors pushing stock or real estate plans based on political/demographic cycles but the cycles are of interest in this case based on their political effects.
Two obvious political cycles in the US are presidential elections every 4 years and redistricting every 10 years. One non-obvious cycle is that the Juglar 7-10 year cycle has been regularized in the US into an 8 year cycle due to presidential cycles. The 8 year cycle is not directly important this election but it will be next election cycle. 2014 may see a bottom like 1982 where only a redefinition of the Labor Force saved us being in an official depression: 10% or more unemployment. The four year cycle downturn is expected to hit in 2010 and the 10 year cycle is expected to be really bad 2010-14. Read More »
Since my wife is preparing for a procto and she regularly sets records for strange and numerous things found in her colon I decided to work off some stress by writing an article, actually I’ve written several articles to work off the stress. This one is about genetic fitness and politics.
My qualifications: my wife is technical supervisor of a dept. in the Mayo Jax campus lab so when I met her I started reading up on biology so I could follow her shop talk. My own background is in finance. While reading I learned that geneticists also deal with discounted income flows. Reading up on how superbright people reinvent the wheel because they don’t know that they could spend time in their college’s undergraduate business school and save themselves months or even years of research proving something that was proven in the 1700s bond market fills me with delight. “The Red Queen” by Matt Ridley is a good example of this. Geneticists have discovered that birds and other animals in the mate market buy formerly “Distressed” genetic properties that are on the upswing. But the real fun comes when the reinventors of the wheel dumb things down for politicians. Read More »
I submitted an article the other day which I seriously doubt see will ever see the light of day.
One sentence summary. The economy is tanking so therefore vote for the greater evil in order to get rid of it.
The article was obtuse, more than average numerate and just plain hard to read. I can do better than that and I asked myself why didn’t I? My answer is I really didn’t want to say what I believe to be the truth: the American voting public is edging up to the Chthulu option or at least as close an approximation as it can stomach. To make this a non-joke article imagine yourself a 1930s screenwriter pitching these two ideas to a studio head about a future presidential election: Read More »
Although it is officially claimed that there are zero slaves in America, slaves are the fastest growing segment of the US population. In fact there are a number of officially recognized classes of slaves:
1. Convicts in jail.
2. conscripts. none currently.
3. Those being held in slavery despite the law: illegals in hock to snakeheads or coyotes; drunks and junkies in held labor camps and brothels and a very long list of various rarities and oddities. This group of slave-owners are prosecuted when caught. Read More »
Got into another abolish the federal reserve system and bring back specie thread. Since I’ve been taking part in such discussions for more than 40 years I know most of the arguments and while I support the basic proposition the assumptions used in this debate are curiously uninformed. Some basic points: Read More »
Jonathan Weiner’s tale of how Seymour Benzer’s discovery of the connections between genes and behavior in fruit flies may sound like a strange commentary on American politics but political behavior is still behavior. Read More »
When discussing politics the basic premise of the writer can be confusing. My basic premise has confused some of my readers at least according to the feedback I’ve gotten so here is my premise: Read More »
This is not intended as an advocacy of a particular ideology just a laundry list of the bankrupt policies of the government sanctioned and at least partly government financed parties: the Democrats and the Republicans. Even though I am a lifelong libertarian as I suspect will be obvious I really don’t care who you vote for so long as you don’t vote for entrenched corruption AKA the Demicans and Republicrats. Even a vote for the CPUSA is preferable than a vote for these bozos. Let’s start with the biggies:
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The general election is effectively over with two possible exceptions:
Obama dies. At this point even Howard Dean having an episode of sanity and going with the Republican solution of seating half of the FL and MI delegates will not put Hillary back in the running if Obama keeps breathing.
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