THE ARAB SPRING

Human rights and civil liberties, none of these are  mere abstractions. The difference they make to the lives of individuals is so vast. Only compare the life of the ordinary man and woman in a western country today with the lives of many of their fellows in developing countries, especially those where religion remains a dominating influence over people's lives.

Religious inspired and backed-up revolts and uprisings, have all their own dynamics, which gradually makes them turn against the values which facilitated their own rise. They therefore change from being a weapon against repression into a weapon of repression, and everything they had set out to destroy re-emerge in new and worse forms.

Sectarianism and tribalism,racism and the praise of war and violence are the results of all Arab revolts and uprisings, which attempt to revive the kind of dictatorships and absolutism once exercised by dictatorships and monarchies. Regimes where the word "democracy" meant a term of horror, and the people were regarded as anarchic and dangerous. WE by now tragically know the results all too well.

TO place reliance on reason, and champion the autonomy and rights of the individual, and oppose absolute monarchies and absolutist regimes, organised religion and the reign of autocratic regimes and  groups are unable to give or do justice.  Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self imposed  immaturity, immaturity in the Arab case is the inability to use one's understanding to his or her problems without guidance from another, whether it be a religious dogma  or foreign powers. And their inability to use their understanding without guidance from another is the state of affairs throughout the whole region. THE freedom to use reason publicly in all matters is practically nonexistent and not tolerated.

PEOPLE of the Arab world can not frame a just constitution or even think about a just political order , until they first figure out who they truly are and consequently the best way to live. Islamic or secular, democratic or theocracy, Shii'sm or Sunnism, to the left or right, liberalism or religious conservatism or even an amalgam of all this, the people of those countries do not know which they want nor are they in any agreement among each other about the way to craft an acceptable living model.

ON all sides we only hear: DO NOT ARGUE !!! OBEY, do not argue; believe, pay and don't think. WE live the culture of the "do not argue."



MY special thanks to all for your time and patience, salamat.

A HECK OF A SITUATION !!!

The founders of western philosophy, the ancient Greeks, guys like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle,thought that the most important philosophical question in the universe, the question to which all other philosophical questions lead, is the question " How should we live ?" The awkward situation in Syria is that all parties ask this same question and each claim the answer opposing the other.


Assuming the question here is whether it's okay for Bashar Assad to run Syria the way he does, or did for the past 12 years, or even the way his father before him did for over thirty years.

I may not know what the best moral or ethical theory is, but if I have any moral knowledge at all, I know that what MR.Assad is doing and might be up to is wrong.

THE Syrian regime and as a last resort for it's survival and the close ones surrounding him, is willing to go into a civil war,and a very bloody one for that, that result in the disintegration of the political structure of Syria as we know it, and the formation of many smaller states, including an Alawite one on most of the coastal geography of actual Syria.All under the same question of " how should we live?"

SO why play around the bush ?? indeed, it's tempting to say that anyone who thinks it is okay for MR. Assad to wreck his country , and ruin the lives of thousands upon thousands of people is a moral incompetent, regardless of the outcome if or when there is a regime change.

A goal of successful countries ought to be to help pull failed countries out of their nightmare.




Thank you for listening and salamat.

PICTURE AT AN EXIBITION !!!

THIS year's election debacle between president Obama and GOP's Romney is just about to start, at least officially.....

SOME of the most hard -fought political arguments of our times, take place this year between two rival camps. The laissez fair camp and the fairness camp. Media is calling it "the middle class or the ninety nine % against the one % rich."

Leading the laissez fair camp are free market libertarians who believe that justice consists in upholding and respecting the voluntary choices made by consenting adults, and legislation to oblige. The fairness camp contains theorists of a more egalitarian tendencies. In their view, justice requires policies that reform and restore social and economic disadvantages and disparities, and give everyone a fair or at least better chances at success.

Often the disagreements are among partisans or rival advocates in the public realm. Sometimes the disagreements are within us as individuals.

Can we reason our way from the judgments we make about concrete situations to the principles of justice we believe should apply in all situations?? That's what moral reasoning consists in.

Disagreements about right or wrong, justice and injustice are part of life in democratic societies, some believe fairness requires taxing the rich to help the poor, and help preserve social benefits, while others believe it is unfair to tax away money people have earned through their own efforts, no matter how they did it as long as it's legal. Elections are won and lost on these disagreements and premises.

What we take to be public debate about justice and rights would be nothing more than a reflection of our moral convictions, and as much as we might be tempted to think that our moral convictions are fixed once and for all, by upbringing, faith or philosophical maturity, sometimes, an argument can change our minds.

WE must rise above the prejudices and routines of everyday life, to grasp the real meaning of justice and fair life for most. Elections this year are going to show us what we really think and who we really are.




Thanks to all for your time and salamat.