Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The Modern Jacksonian - Chapter 1 - About the Author

My personal journey towards finding Jacksonianism.

Welcome to the strangest political tract you will most likely every lay eyes on, the rambling views of an individual that has come to recognize that no political outlook that is popularly held is held by him. In point of fact, I have ambled over the political landscape without adherence to much of anything and to know that journey I will start, most conveniently, near the beginning! Now isn't that a wonderful concept, instead of one of those movies where the end comes first and isn't really the end, you get the beginning at the beginning which is so very constructionist in its outlook.

That beginning must fairly begin in childhood, to which I will give you a thumbnail description of it as I saw it from my side of things, although other views would most certainly vary from this. I did not start life out as a Jacksonian by upbringing! I know, strange but true. The upbringing I *did* have was in a family oriented by its parents towards 'Scientific Socialism' which basically held to the works of Marx and DeLeon and gave pretty short-shrift to things thereafter. My parents were affiliated with one of the minor Socialist Parties that held to the very strictest adherence to Marx possible in outlook, but not in family life or activity. What was done is that this Party held to the European tradition of 'party gatherings' being more on the gathering and less on the political. With that the meetings centered around grills, backyard barbecues, day at the beach, holiday gatherings and the such like. Add in a few cases of beer, fruit punch and games for the kids and you have yourself a regular outing! The political diatribe part was pretty minimal, maybe a half-hour to an hour of one or two prepared mini-talks by regular party members. In theory just about anyone could address the gathering but, in practice, the few really well-versed ones did the brunt of that gathering after gathering.

I was coming to this from a basically middle-class background, although my extended family on the Polish side was definitively 'blue collar' working class with all but one or two working at jobs like long-haul trucking, construction, mill work, and heavy industry. My mother worked part-time as a school teacher then in real estate then cafeteria management and wound up in a clerical job for a friend of the family's company. My father was of Swedish lineage via Finland and that part of the family was sparse, with only my grandmother surviving into my early childhood. Although not unloving, he was a quiet man, but gifted at music, carpentry, basic steel work, electrical work and had a full time job as an electrical engineer at one of the major industrial companies. I was a late #3 in line and basically grew apart from my brother and sister as they were already moving out when I was properly growing up. Even with that the emotional ties to family *are* there and deeply held. But, unlike my brother and sister, I had a decidedly different outlook on life. None of us who were the children actually kept much to Socialism once we grew into the mid-teens as basic life experience was showing a different world than it was purported to be from the Socialist viewpoint.

These are NOT the hallmarks of growing up Jacksonian, from what I understand.

Temperamentally I am what the Myers-Briggs folks characterize as an INTP or as one of the books on that test put it: such a small minority of the population that they seem to be from a different world. That is me, your ambassador to a different world! I am *still* waiting for the much promised mothership, so have to do the best I can with what I have, unfortunately. Thus introversion and perspective cast me out or, as I saw it: 'What is up with people acting like that?' There is the other, and more chilling way to put it: 'He was such a *quiet* boy...' The postal career actually didn't look to good to me, however, so life would not take me there.

Now, with my father being an engineer he was interested in the sciences and that also infused over, while none of his other skills for doing creative things manually did. Thus I am not a skilled craftsman unless one counts the laborious hours of life spent in putting my own computers together. But that interest in the sciences would lead many places, the first of which is science fiction. And one of the greatest things about SF in that era of the early 1970's is that all of the prior works had been done under a totally different view of society. If you have ever read a science fiction story where the protagonist uses his or her know-how to do something to achieve good ends, then you have read about a Jacksonian. The listing of names is long, in the annals of SF, for that: Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Piper, Clement, Niven, Pournelle, Garrett, Blish, Anderson, Drake, Flint, Saberhagen, Anthony, Dickson, Foster, Card... and many, many more. I read voluminously of SF and because so much of SF is based on science and history, one must read those to get the actual context of the stories and more fully enjoy them.

From school I did get some of the basics, of course, on society, english, math and science. I did, however, pick up knowledge quickly, sometimes very quickly, and people were amazed at how deeply I understood concepts and entire organizations of thought and then examined them. My thinking process is highly non-linear, with multiple intertwining thought areas and organizations interacting on a constant basis. From my youngest recollection of actually solving real-life problems people were wondering how I came up with the solutions. I really thought that this was quite simple: describe the problem as fully as possible and the solution is tagged with those things and the solution space is obvious because there is a limit on what CAN be done. Note that this is not traditional 'deductive' reasoning nor fully 'inductive' either as it uses the realm of the 'possible' to automatically limit things. Once the known limits are in-place, the problem is stated, the solution space is engendered by the limits of that space and the feeds into, which must be amenable to the solution.

Simple in concept, but difficult to describe.

Now, the benefit of this way of approaching things is that *missing* areas become obvious immediately: there is a void in the problem and solution space and, thus, no ready answer can be found and requires more input. The absolute one thing that people despised about my solutions is that when they were 'attacked' or 'questioned' the actual solution already addressed their concerns or with minimal change would accommodate them. Time after time those coming to me with life problems or other problems of a 'real' sort found answers with me. My goal in life was NOT to be 'The Shell Answer Man'! Even worse were those that didn't carry out what the answer was fully and then complained about the results. Insufficient input on solution yields no solution.

With these descriptions, then the next bit of information should come as no surprise: I picked up on board war gaming at an early age and expanded upon that year after year. These are games that use a depiction of realistic of highly interlocking rule sets to give what can and cannot be done within the purview of the game itself. Thus, tank battles of WWII had constraints on movement, line of sight, line of fire, terrain crossing and so on. Realistic depiction of actual forces was accomplished and you could play out the result with an opponent. I took to that so much that I was often my only opponent and I learned to 'flip sides' of a game on a continual basis. This requires the mental capability of segregating knowledge and thought processes of each side so that there is no spillover. Difficult in practice, but it is a learned skill. One game, Dune, is a multi-faction game (which suits the book quite well) and as 'Prescience' is involved with one player actually getting some insight into the capabilities of other players during the course of the game, it was a natural. So much so that the other players told me that I could not play that faction. That was fine by me, as the method of understanding how factions worked was then apparent and shifting to a *different* faction did not diminish my play.

So there is where the 'warfare' part of Jacksonianism comes with me: from the understanding of warfare, why it is used, what makes it go, the infrastructure behind it, the deployment or not of forces, logistics... the reason that board war games were used by the military is that it taught the necessary thinking of warfare from the squad to the geopolitical level. And warfare is a natural outgrowth of human culture, although that is a bit further in the narrative, and so our cultures are designed to demonstrate *why* it is there. Add in social studies courses and one excellent instructor on the the construction of representative democracy and another on the Constitution and the actual framework for the entirety of the utility of warfare for Nations was done. Then along came Connections. That puts me right around the age of 16 and then how I thought, at least in large part was then made obvious.

From the plough to the ICBM is a continuous interconnected whole. The society that gives rise to all of the possible changes and interconnections *between* changes gives rise to the complexity of our world. That said, and what Mr. Burke does state but does not follow through upon, is that the underlying reasons driving each of these connections is simple and basic: human need and inquisitiveness. Good, and bad, we do that interconnecting on a daily basis ourselves and while the deep knowledge of any *single* piece requires the knowledge of a specialist, understanding the driving causation and possible interconnecting pieces does *not*. The first firm definition of how I thought was: Generalist.

Such knowledge does not lead to happiness, sweetness and all things good... mostly because of the INTP characteristics, the basic Nordic emotional influences of my father, and the overall approach to life by me as an individual. But that knowledge did help me to better understand my own thought and thinking structure and its interplay and the key knowledge that simplicity leads to complexity is one that is overlooked by many. The actually depressing thing about how the society at large organizes is that it does not recognize Generalists in anything but a "ne'er do well" sense. Life progressed, however, and my teachers were always so amazed at my insights and capability and hated the fact that I didn't score well on exams. The long form of writing, however, was prime to me and no English teacher ever worried about my capabilities. In fact one did question my daily change of books and I did answer truthfully that I had finished the previous. Every day. She asked how long I had been doing *that* and I estimated about 5 years or so. After a few eye-blinks came the response: 'You have read more than I have!' I nodded and thought nothing of it. She was 38 or so and I was 17. She was the English teacher and I was the student. I was, apparently, not your 'ordinary' student. And she didn't really appreciate that until a quick listing of the previous few months of reading were listed out to her, and it was mostly SF, but history, science, biography, warfare, art amongst others were all listed, the art being poetry in this case.

As to this 'never testing to the intelligence' concept, do remember that this may speak more to the measure of what intelligence is more than what is being tested on any given exam. Hitting a world history course the first thing we were given, day one, was a blank map of Europe. Everyone got 10 minutes. At the end I was carving out Lichtenstein and the Holy See and all sorts of other little pieces left out because the map only went for the major nations at that point in time. Today I could reason out which Balkan State is which, but it would take a minute or two. The instructor didn't understand how I knew them all, and the answer did set him back: I play Third Reich. A game from Avalon Hill or whatever they have been acquired into these days. Actually, there was quite a bit of European history that I did not know in-depth and promptly forgot details of soon after the course, but kept the general interplay knowledge so that reconstructing the information would be easy.

Apparently, not many other people do that little mental trick, either.

So a fast forward through high school and in my freshman year of college I was diagnosed as a Type 1 insulin dependent diabetic. To answer all the 'chickenhawk' folks: that was that. Truthfully, at that point I was not looking at a military career as my eyesight was not great to start with and emotional troubles finally led to that portion of my life imploding for some months after being diagnosed with diabetes. I was not a fun individual to be around at that point in my life. Took off a couple of semesters from college and reorganized my emotional setup and my mental state and restarted, with a couple of pieces not working great. Mathematics had reached its peak with me because of early computer programming courses. Yes, I was trained in higher math via learning computer programming of one of the most complex languages around, which was APL: A Programming Language. That did leave me with an intense interest in computers, which remains until this day. As a couple of side lights it left me as a 'cryptic coder' seeking brevity in code and it also ruined me for higher mathematics which I could program a machine to do because I understood the concepts of the math involved to do so. The first I was able to train myself out of and the second never really recovered to fine-tune quality. Math, like most of the rest of life, has limits, bounds, changes of rates and space, and all sorts of other things, so the conceptual space involved is utilized even though the actual process outside of a computer is not well understood.

University took me through many things as, to be a computer programmer, the University I attended required that heavy math load. So I wandered subjects for a year or so and settled on the true Generalist's Science: Geology. It is the single science that requires you to be able to talk with just about every other science in an intelligible fashion. And with advances in genetic theory spurred on by evolutionary theory, and extinction events happening in a non-uniformitarian fashion, all of the space sciences also came into the realm of geology, including astronomy and the motion of the galaxy and our star in relation to other stars over time. Mathematics forms the foundation of science, and if you can't define what you are measuring you are not measuring *anything*.

All of this is a continuous whole in my life and is cross-synthesized by my thought processes. As Stephen Jay Gould later said about Lamarckian concepts of selection, they may be right but were applied at the wrong scale and time-frame. To me ALL methods of thought have that connotation: it may not be right for one thing, but if it works as a consistent whole and as a methodology it may be applicable to something *else*. That means entire lines of strategy, tactics, logistics, genetic theory, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and, in point of fact, everything we DO as humans is amenable to this cross-fertilization and analytical re-application. And my mind knew no bounds of questions, although finding satisfactory answers was another matter entirely.

Now, as many have asked me about religion, I will say, truthfully, that I don't have one. It is correct to say that I have no belief in any god. But it is also correct to say that I fully comprehend the reasoning and need behind individuals looking for that and the manifestations of that need, in and of itself, points to something higher. As I live by cliches and such in life, seemingly, this one is absolutely appropriate to this field, although stolen from Mr. Spock in a Star Trek Episode (Amok Time): "Having is often not as good as *wanting*. This is not logical, but it is often TRUE."

Or as in the Movie Excalibur: "The Quest is THE Quest."

I see much that is 'good' with religions in being able to funnel this need by individuals to give them some form of answer that makes sense to them. By giving out things that are culturally adapted and comprehensible an *end* to a Quest may be given so that a newer one may be started that is less divisive for the soul and more fulfilling as life goes on. That is both good and noble to bring about such an end so that an individual can find some peace within themself and lead a better and more satisfying life, thereby. That said I see that across the ENTIRE panoply of religions, not just one. Some I do detest for their diminishment of individuals and for entreaties to do acts that harm, hurt and kill. Those things must be reconciled within the individual, but I, truthfully, see no good in the DOING of such things nor in their espousal. I detest those things in ALL religions that espouse such actions, regardless of culture or other meaningful things within that religion. The Act is wrong, and when given as something that is regular in *worship* or to appease some higher deific being, it is wrong.

Warfare waged for religious purposes, then, is wrong on many counts to my view. Waging it to *protect* yourself, your family, your neighbors or your Nation is something else entirely. Attacking to DEFEND is highly justified and Honorable. Attacking to accrete favor with a deity, gain power for oneself or one's Nation or out of pure hatred is unjustified, no matter what gloss it is given. That comes clearly across from all societies and cultures: those that fight without need and to gain power and control are hated. And the obvious plight of what happens if you do NOT defend yourself is also true: you are killed or enslaved. And when you fight back, you fight to WIN.

On religions I give honor to ALL religions and practice NONE and recognize the hard need of the Quest those within their religions are going through to find something of meaning for themselves. I appreciate *why* they want to spread it. And after saying 'No thank you' my preference is that those wanting to push their brand of it would go elsewhere. Because of all the rules I have for my own conduct this one remains the highest in this area of life: I will be a party to NO religion that forces ME to dishonor the decision of ANYONE in this area of their lives. And the follow up is: That any religion that does not respect MY wishes is one that I will NOT be a part of.

And that, most specifically, means YOURS.

To put it this way: I have read all the major works and tracts of the majority religions, their minority off-shoots and such to about the third degree out from the root stock. There is NO further return on investment for me in looking *again* because the basics needed to be understood along with the differences (n) number of times, until the actual systems of differences involved became apparent. Just as there is a limited number of actual stories that can be devised, although characterization, plotting, setting and timing are infinitely variable, the actual story TYPES are limited. From what I have seen, although I am not enough of a linguist, mathematician, religious philosopher and logician to give this a definitive 1.0 only the 'back of the envelope' 0.9 for my OWN views, there is a LIMITED number of possible permutations in religion type before patterns of differences show up that become common across ALL religions throughout the history of mankind. Devising a brand *new* religion would be the equivalent of creating a brand *new* story. And even if it is *done* that will not make it either right nor perfect. A brand new story type can still be BADLY TOLD the first time, for all of its novelty.

What will be done is the increase from the number of religions (n) in which ( n > 10 ) multiplied by the standard and non-standard number of deviations and their crossings which is larger than (n) and is a (!v) factorial minus a non-zero, but non total number that represents recurrent themes in which a difference makes no difference where (k) is a constant (!(n v) - (!n + !(v-k))) = R which is the total number of religions possible that are all highly variable within the original typific space and have non-commonality so that they can be differentiated easily by more than *name*. That, to me, as a non-mathematician but as an individual who has had to deal with such things in computers and programming, makes sense to yield a highly rich space because the variations are so high, but the actual numbers for the original types and their consistent themes are relatively low. Note that finding a new variation is also well exhausted, but that a new variation TYPE would then expand all religions as that variation gets applied to *them*. Because it is a factorial, the number of new spaces that open up within existing religious space goes up quickly, although decremented by the similarities in solution types. This is not a great rendition of my approach to the actual (R) that I perceive, but it comes pretty close to it as the myriad capability of people for inventiveness in this realm is limited by the actual types of religions that can be involved. Thus most people get picky over the (k) or how similar what they espouse is to what someone in a nearby sect that is 95 to 98% similar to them espouses. They see that 2-5% as major, while I, in all fairness, do *not* as it is swamped out by the (v) part of the equation and the similarity TYPE is recognized.

Someone could probably throw that into a proper equation and refine it, but for me it comes to a known quantity with slightly variable definitional space at the edges, but that is not a *wide* boundary but a *thin* one. What this does do, however, is show the actual solution space to the question: What is the meaning of an individual's life in this world of ours? Let us hope the answer is *not* 42.

Have I said yet that I do not think like anyone I know?

That said some will justly claim that there is no way to properly find the limits of that equation, and I will actually agree with that as I have to use a 'rule of thumb' and 'common sense' to the numbers and approaches involved. I cannot give a hard and fast setting to those numbers. And would you like to know *why* that is the case?

One of the greatest theoretical outlooks for how to look at human psyche was *not* fully started by Freud or Jung or any of those wondrous thinkers and philosophers. The greatest defect of ALL the social sciences is that they cannot put hard and fast definitions against what they want to measure. These are *not* sciences because of that thing.

From what I can see there is one and only one individual that actually proposed and scoped out the social sciences AS sciences. Do you know who I see that individual as being? Isaac Asimov and his idea of 'psychohistory'. By being able to put definitions on what the human behavior is, even in a 'mass' way, actual reasoning based on what is described can be done by people. This crosses some sort of sacrosanct boundary in that *numbers* will be applied to underlying described *personality traits*. Yes, human behavior would need to be defined in a numerically relevant way and then tested to ensure that the measurement and original definitions had meaning. It is a sad note for all of humanity that we have been so afraid of this that no one has put together a meaningful and mathematically measurable system of defining human personality, perspective and behavior. After you get out of the medical sciences and their recent advances, you are left in a void and cast adrift. In point of fact there is only one community that does this and has a feedback mechanism to help ensure that they have actually defined what they measured and are getting results to it. And the group that does this is one that will give no joy to you, I am sure.

Who are these people? These solons of insight?

Marketers.

They have all the necessary underpinnings to describe human behavior as it varies by geography, culture, ethnicity, age, and education. They must apply solutions to market things based on set parts of those divisions. And they get direct feedback on success or failure which can then be fed IN to their initial theories. No other social science yet devised has this within its characteristics. Marketing just may be the way forward to understanding all of human behavior and understanding it. That will most likely get the entire human race using the athletic shoe of choice in no time at all, but at least THAT will be settled.

Now to get back on course, all my gaming experience and love of science made one of two tracks possible for me: first was a technical job nearly anywhere, second was to continue on in academia and then look for an academic position. That latter held no appeal to me as going tens of thousands of dollars in debt to get higher education in Geology meant that I would be locked into academia with little chance to escape. This was during the 'oil patch' days when PhD's in Geology were good enough to get you a job flipping burgers right next to the English PhD's. The reason for that is the only way out via Geology was through the large petroleum firms that were *still* doing exploration, and as one of the staff of the Department told me: They prefer to hire Bachelor Degrees as they will be teaching all the advanced things and do NOT want to have to un-teach you what you learn in academia. That was a sobering assessment! Thus with a near-minor in CompSci, a Bachelor's degree in Geology one could be gainfully unemployed AND overeducated!

Note to the business community: if an individual is willing and capable to take a job at a wage offered, do NOT refuse them based on being 'overeducated' unless, like the oil firms, you have a good REASON not to. What I got from a couple of years looking were *excuses* not *reasons*. And that was a long search in which one of hundreds of applications filled out was to the Federal Government and the DoD as one Agency was looking for folks in the sciences with bachelor's degrees. I applied there and also to one of the National Parks that I had worked at after a volunteer stint there as they offered a *second* path through academia via government research. The DoD beat the Park Service by ONE WEEK. Either would have put my skills to use for the Nation and I would have adored working in the area I volunteered in, which was Yellowstone. That said, guaranteed advancement, interesting work and decent pay made the DoD a much more likely opportunity. And I would be helping the Warfighter!

So learning the ropes took a bit, but once done I was finally able to get moving through more interesting positions and became the 'pinball' of the Agency getting to touch on nearly every aspect of its work. And once my ability to deconstruct problems and find solutions was evident, I got moved into near-future systems procurement, then back to the warfighter assist area right after 9/11 by volunteering to help spell my coworkers who were digging up every shred of data to send out to the troops as they left for Afghanistan. From there I got into Advanced R&D and worked hard to help find new and better ways to put necessary information into the hands of those who could 'connect the dots' which went up and down the scale from the tactical to the geostrategic. Recently a medication has interacted with an underlying condition in my family and taken me out of service permanently.

But in that post-9/11 world I could feel that there was something *wrong* and terribly so about what was going on in the world and our approach to it as a People. I searched for answers and thought on many things and then came across the ongoing discussions at the USS Clueless run by Steven Den Beste. Things quickly fell into place when I saw that the synthesis of my outlook on life, warfare, and what was an HONORABLE way to act within the confines of the common agreement between the People of the United States led to only one direction.

I self-identified as a Jacksonian and the more I learned the more that fit until I also realized that it described an entire methodology of thinking in politics and personal outlook that fused the two and, because of its originating space, pushed it on NO ONE.

You cannot 'learn' to be a Jacksonian.

No one can 'teach' you to be a Jacksonian.

You can read and ask of yourself: 'Do I identify with this? Does it describe how my thoughts and emotions run from Nation to personal?'

Because it is a philosophy built upon the roots of simple concepts that are scale-free, their implementation changes with scale but the outlook of them does NOT.

If it is a good and honorable thing to be in common with those around you and support that concept, which we in latter days have called 'Nation', then you understand WHY honor is important at that scale and on the personal scale. You are ashamed of your own less than honorable acts and deeply ashamed when your Nation acts in such a way.

The just means to hold accountability is given by the methods held common between individuals that have been codified, and those move straight up to the Nation State level and interactions between Nations. As individuals we have Friends and as a Nation we have Friends and Friends need to be supported right after Family and just as stringently. And when as an individual we give and get allegiance between ourselves, that bond is also seen as the exact EQUAL to that of our Nation having an Ally that we bond with to better protect and understand each other. And you go to absurd lengths to help Friends and protect them and bail them out of situations they get themselves into and you expect the Nation to do the EXACT SAME THING. You never, ever desert a Friend and ALWAYS give them at least one chance to make up for any wrongs and know when YOU have done wrong and will make amends for doing so once you understand the wrong you have done. The loss of a Friend leaves a void in life, and the loss of a Nation that ours has been Friends with leaves a wound in the psyche that does not go away easily, if at all.

In times past Jacksonians would prefer to let the world ROT where it was so long as it did not bother home and family and Nation. Today the world has shrunk down to village size and we adjust by asking: 'Just what sort of idiot neighbors do we have to deal with?'

This outlook comes from old stock, beyond the mere Anglo-Saxon derived Scots-Irish. It transformed through those cultures, but the basics of it came from the Nordic cultures that heavily influenced village life before 1066 and the more Continental attitudes diffused into the Anglo-Saxon culture. That pollination into those realms meant that even when the world went into a chill, the new foundations of this thought survived to cross with Continental forms of democracy which were seen as an addition to the village based democracy of Nordic roots. Together an honor based form of democracy was created and moved into the New World via the Scots-Irish in the main, although many other cultures were also influenced by other means and methods to similar ends. This fusion into the Republic of the United States as a common and honorable means to HAVE a Nation is the maximum end of the scale for Jacksonians for identification: nothing BEYOND the Nation is wanted beyond Friends and Allies.

As such the Jacksonian outlook was to always disproportionately counter-attack as only a scoundrel would attack without fair warning and without cause. Jacksonians are very live and let-live folks, but if the bothering becomes harsh, the response is DEADLY. And as an ideological grouping, Jacksonians do not 'play around' with freedom, we LIVE free.

Or die trying.

From those common and 'simple' concepts comes such things as: the best government is small, local, limited and as representative as possible. You do not put things UP for higher government to do if you can get it done at a lower level or at the level of individuals.

One does not let *any* government dictate freedom as ALL government is accountable to sustain freedom, not dictate it.

And because the highest Honor that is held by Jacksonians is that which is held in common by the People of this Nation: the Nation *must* be supported to survive along the outlay of that document that tells what We the People agree to do and that government is one way to do it, but to get these things done is a responsibility held by All the Citizens of the United States.

It takes long decades for Jacksonians to have PROVEN to them that ANYTHING at a higher level of government is actually BENEFICIAL to the Nation and All of the People. A central bank took Jacksonians about 70 or 80 years to finally start to trust somewhat and we STILL want it to have the strictest possible oversight so it doesn't dictate to the Nation economically.

But, when reality slaps us in the face and we SEE that the world as changed we do the necessary thing and re-apply the scale-free views that we hold to them and start running our own lives accordingly. In this instance that is the shortening of the globe by time and distance due to technology. We adore the technology and what it gains us for personal freedom, but see the problems of it and then apply those things that have kept us safe for CENTURIES: honorable activities, accountability to responsibilities and upholding one's Nation by doing those things FIRST FOR THE NATION. Then to utilize the freedoms *protected* by those actions for ourselves in a manner that is personal but upholds the commonality of the Nation and due process.

Jacksonians are, by and large, disproportionately represented in the military. It is more than *just* a duty to serve and protect the Nation: it is an HONOR to do so and be seen as worthy of that BY THE NATION.

Those are the bonds of friendship and honor that we EXPECT the rest of the Nation to understand.

And now Jacksonians find themselves in this Global Village landscape and saying: "It's a village. What's the fuss all about?"

We continue to act in accordance with the outlooks we have, because they are Right, they are Proper, they are Time-Tested and they are JUST.

All of these folks all over the political landscape trying to make it sound much more confusing because it is international in scope have 'obviously' never been to a city council meeting. Unfortunately by outlawing the duel the rest of the Nation has forgotten how a bad council meeting could END if not properly managed. Now the village we are stuck in has no council, but things a bit more on the order of neighborhood watch committees and some common folks getting together to make sure our displeasure is felt when they do some trespassing and brick throwing through windows. We don't stand around bickering unless its just on how harsh the reaction will be... well, that's Jacksonianism for you.

What we don't ask is: 'Why do they hate us?'

The answer is: "Don't care, just want them to act civilized. If they don't, then they deserve some harshness after attacking me."

Usually Permanent Harshness so we don't have to put up with it from that individual again.

Jacksonians would much rather have a good talk over a beer or two or whatever to work something out BEFORE it gets that far. Violence is only the first resort when it has been visited upon us FIRST. And then there are no-holds-barred on the counter-attack and anything goes.

And when talking, if it is obvious that we are being suckered into a trap or someone is just trying to wear us down by not honestly dealing, we PREFER to just walk away from them. Really! "Don't like me, then to HELL with you."

So violence comes in about #3.

Hey we gave amicable talk a chance!

And then we even went beyond that until we realized the other guy wasn't dealing honestly!

And folks wonder why so many poker games became shootouts....

That goes for the personal to the International and Jacksonians really don't get this 'Realpolitik', 'realism', 'pragmatism' or other ways that seem to just be saying: 'Walk all over us.'

That just doesn't seem very 'realistic' and pretty much asking for a shortened life span or one led in dishonor.

That comes to no good end for a person.... or a Nation. Especially one seeking to be of Free People.

And so that is the basics in a nutshell of my strange life, how it has led me on many a path, the things I use and how I put them together. I get to complex conclusions by taking all the simple stuff into account and finding where it leads. If I don't like that then I include some more until it gets to a good and decent end that I can support.

So that We can live as Free People.

And not just talk about it while the iron collar goes around our necks on how maybe, now, we should defend our freedom.

But that is just me.

I think strange thoughts.

2 comments:

Daniel said...

Great piece!

I had two thoughts when reading it...

1) I had a college math professor explain to me that Mathematics is more truly an art than a strict science. I struggled with algebra and generally consider the subject a pain in the ass... best left to the PE's I work with or excel. But something in your writing triggered his words... so there it is.

2) I follow a path that is a minority religion at best or considered an extreme fringe religion at worst; I am a Germanic Reconstructionist trying to faithfully adhere to that Traditionally minded spirit of the Ancient Teutons. I mention it because I often use the internet to research trends in other reconstructionist beliefs... and I came across something of interest.

Essentially it is the Religio Americana. The Apotheosis of Washington and other Founding Fathers raised to the Heavens alongside other American Gods such as Liberty, with our plethora of Divine Heros. I found the subject intriguing.

Best,
Daniel

A Jacksonian said...

Daniel - My thanks for stopping by and giving it a read!

Math is an art in being able to figure out what a system of mathematicl interactions leads to as a space of concepts. Kurt Godel did outstanding work to recognize the incompleteness of mathematical systems and that different systems of math had their own variations on what could and could not be understood within each system because of those fundamental limits. This is a cross-foundational idea, however, as it applies quite strictly to some number of physical systems with the deep parameters of same. Warfare, as a physical system, is still an *art* and no computer using strictly logical means can get to conclusive ends. Non-linear computers may advance that, but the high degree of cross-connectivity of the human mind requires that a similar level be reached before a computer can fully get to that level of thought. Even with that there are bounds to the physical world and knowing what *needs* to be done against what *can* be done then requires addressing the incompleteness of that entire system. While we do adore the hard-work type of completeness, we also recognize that those who use the incompleteness of the system to their advantage are given high praise. You can be thoroughly outnumbered, as Count Belisarius was continually, and yet still win against what most folks would consider the odds to be, because a different set of factors were used by him to recast the odds in a way that suited him better. Thorough understanding of the enemy by him led to amazing results against mere combat odds... all the way to convincing a heavily larger force that his own tiny force was much larger, and they left because of his past successes. He correctly figured out their cultural view of him, and then used that against them to win without even taking to the field. Now *that* is warfare!

I give high praise to the Germanic strain of Multiviewpoint Universality, and often use the older stories to describe my mental capabilities via Hugin and Munin: I am glad when both rest at perches within me, but they don't do that together all that often. A chaotic system with limits, mathematically, but also with internally consistent parts that interlock. One of the major concepts of the Teutonic and the Nordic past is that of deep cultural memory, encapsulated by the stories they told. The major shift of pathways of the main-strain Germanic and the Norse are relatively recent in comparison, but also lead to different associations and variations on their cultural themes. The lower Germanic areas re-adapted the concepts and stories to their new climes, while the Norse stuck to them because they kept to the climate and the stories still held deep connectivity to that.

These both cross-infuse via the Anglo-Saxon and into the Scots-Irish, which refocus the concepts and ideals kept by both systems and transport those to America. While the more 'classical' learning of the Greco-Roman dominated European culture for the upper class, the more 'down to Earth' strains of the Nordic and Germanic still had a firm grip. America allowed the first, deep reconciliation between these two major strains of thought, giving us a spectrum of thought that allows for flexibility in attitude, but keeping to the simple idea of: 'does this work'?

Benjamin Franklin is, perhaps, the most potent individual to come from this early blending as he puts forth ways to adhere to BOTH while diminishing NEITHER. His 'common wisdom', by and large, still rings as true today as it did in his life. His scientific views and inculcating of same into his own philosophical bent led to a richness and definitional quality to his views that further generations have yet to equal. While the two major documents of the Nation were both *written* by others, they both had their rough drafts looked at and amended by Franklin. His continuous whole of Nation is readily apparent from the gentle reworking of Jeffersonian ideals to his hard 'hands-on' solution to make the Constitution a workable concept.

Jeffersonian ideals, Washington's heart at having lost all and then making the Nation his child, and all the rest would have gone by the wayside into grief or idealistic frenzy if it were not for the calm, earthy scientist and philosopher who tempered both to forge the concept of this Nation. It is a dynamic tension we live with, at our peril, to this day.

We can mis-step, but the tension helps to correct the Nation's course back to that of Liberty, Freedom and the Responsibilities of the Individual. When the Nation strays from that, the tension builds up and it shudders in correction, often suddenly.

That has met the one requirement the Nation has: it works.