tar

Overtone, But didn't we vote Bush out and Obama in to make the situation better? If the problems were too severe to correct, then Obama was wrong in suggesting he could do better. And you are completely ignoring any role the U.S. and the U.S. state department had in fostering the Arab Spring, and in seeking regime change in Syria. A state department NOT lead by Bush and Cheney. If the U.S. had a plan against international terrorism that took us to Syria and Libya and other countries in Africa and the middle east, after Iraq and Iran, the motive force behind the instability is not Bush's desire to defeat them on foreign soil, the motive force is the international terrorism itself that seeks to defeat the great Satan (the U.S.) If the rise of ISIS is not good for our way of life, and not good for our friends in the areas of the world that ISIS would control, then characterizing the problem as caused by Bush, is incomplete. International terrorism is what we are fighting, even still, without Bush at the helm. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, The core perhaps in either direction usually goes in the same direction, but people change as they age, and sometimes certain issues take the lead in terms of the way people would like to see things go. There is always enough of a swing vote to make the thing interesting and often the polls show changing preferences right up to the last weeks before the general election. There are whites for instance that voted for Obama, BECAUSE he was black, and wanted to live in a country that could have a black president. And there might be Jews that would normally vote democrat that might not like the latest deal with Iran and such. There are conservative Cubans that vote habitually for Republicans and should not be lumped in with any block voting taking place with Hispanics. The various metrics of sex and race and religion and region and age do indeed change. Not only does the characteristics of the voters change, but the minds of individual voters, change as well. hi Party line voting in the senate and house is different than party line voting in the populace. That is, in a general election you vote for the person who seems most likely to take the country in the direction you want to see the country go, or against the person liable to take the country in a direction you do not want to see the country go in. In party line voting in the senate you are voting on a law, that should by all rights be agreeable to 90 percent of the congress, as that it will be a law that 100 percent of the populace must follow. It makes no sense that a person would agree on every issue in their party's platform, or that a person would disagree with every plank of the other party's platform. I just heard Huckabee say "they are not a monolithic vote" I was not listening to the program, so I don't know what he was talking about, but I don't think any group in the populace is a monolithic vote. Everybody has there own mind, their own will, and their own judgement. If anybody votes without thinking about it, they are doing it wrong. This being said, the person that wins the election is the person that the country wants to win the election, over the other candidates. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, I had not thought of looking at South Africa. Good thought. On the black children suicides, the numbers are small. They look comparable to other suicide numbers, but others are stated as per 100,000 and these are stated as per million. So you have to move the decimal point one space over to see the relative size. Not that suicide deaths in children are not even more important to understand than adult suicides, but when the numbers get smaller certain local factors could skew the numbers significantly. The HDHD drugs idea I don't think handles the numbers. Maybe there could be a connection though to our societal increase in handling every problem with a pill. And in this you might have something, if the behavioral issues of young black children, primarily young black boys entering early puberty are addressed by a psychiatric drug, which may effect normal decision making processes. But the things that jumped at me in the study were the decline in religious preventative influences among black children and the odd fact that strangulation was the biggest increased factor, among the black children. I don't know what this means, but it is suspicious. Suspicious as in wondering if some incidents were not actually suicides. It would not take but a few hundred incidents a year where the investigators were mislead, to skew the numbers. But that suspicion aside, and looking for reasons. I am wondering if such things as standardized testing could weigh on a young black b oy's self esteem. I had heard that one of the differences between the average home where the parents or a parent had gone to college and those where there was not a college graduate in the household, was the number of books in the house. This linked with the ability of the parents to help with the homework, could set up black children whose parents are not as educated, or not at home, as more in danger of poor performance on the standardized tests. Although it would not explain the high rate in males over females. Regards, TAR

So you think this. I do not think you are saying anything useful, true or sensible.

Overtone, So Obama not taking us into Syria was a good idea, or a bad idea? Regards, TAR Besides, the 250 thousand deaths in Syria in the last 3 years, all occurred in the last three years.

Ten Oz, Yes that was the link I lost. It falsifies my female leader theory. I does not however falsify the black leader theory. We might be on new ground here, where we don't have a good comparson yet to make, one way or the other. We just have the correlation of increased white male suicides, corresponding with some combination of things that have happened in the recent past, where the iwhite male mortality numbers have gone up, independanly from the numbers of other racial groups or females. The second link in 52 is not up to date and might not span the time we need to make any connections to psychiatric drug use. It studied the period between 1996 and 2000 and was written in 2005. Many of the indications from the study may have already be acted upon, and do not seem contemporary with the increase in the rate of white male suicides in the last 10 years. Perhaps the pain killers that have resulted in so much suburban drug use and addicts that switch to heroin from the city, have something to do with the white male suicide rate increase, as that epidemic seems to be contemporary to the increase in white male suicides. And in this your study might be useful in showing that there is a chance that white males would get the prescription medication before other groups, based on whatever privilege allowed white males to get more psychiatric drugs 15-20 years ago. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, Most of my close friends and family are democrats, but not all. I was not suggesting that all democrats are drug addicts and gang member. Just some. Same as that all republicans are not scum, just some. Most people of both parties are good people. My theory is that 90 percent of us are good, and 10 percent questionable, with some of those 10 percent downright evil. But the boundaries between the good and the bad people are not along party lines. Overtone draws the line and says everybody in the Republican party is evil and everybody that votes for the republican party is stupid and ignorant. This attitude does not wash with me and does not jive with my experience of the world the last 50 years. I have found more stupidity and evil in the city, and I moved to the country where I find life quite beautiful a friendly. Regards, TAR Neither party is the problem with America. The problem is party line voting, and party line good and evil thinking. Just because someone lives life differently and thinks differently does not make them evil, if they follow the laws of the United States, protect the constitution, and follow the customs, morals and morays established in the U.S. Most elections for the presidency are between a Republican and a Democrat and most times the winner of the electoral college vote also gets near 50 percent of the vote. Usually the loser also gets near 50 percent of the popular vote. This says to me that there is probably a core that always votes Republican and a core that always votes Democrat and a block of independents and moderates that actually decide the elections. People that voted for Bush when Bush won, and voted for Clinton when Clinton won. And some people that voted for Bush may well have voted for Obama. It is not sensible to figure a person is an idiot for voting for Bush, and somehow is cured of their idiocy when they voted for Obama. Or vice a versa. Regards, TAR Or maybe Overtone says that all the leadership of the republican party is evil and all the followers ignorant dupes. It doesn't make any sense, whatever it is she is saying, because it does not work the way she is laying it out. Maybe it works in her head, but it does not work according to Overtone logic, in the real world.

Overtone, Your definition of decent citizen is not the same definition used by millions and millions of U.S. citizens that would label you as a hater of the U.S. and a ignorer of the real dangers that face the country. Regards, TAR Here is the thing. The people I depend on to make my country safe and my neighborhood safe. The people I see at the store and at school and a business, working and supporting a family and a house and a car and mowing the lawn and making the place safe and beautiful and nice to live in, are the same people you are calling the scum of the Earth. You have your reality all mixed up. There is real capability and trust out there and there is more of it in a middle class suburb or on a farm than there is in a drug invested, gang run territory of a large city. The republicans are found in greater numbers on the farms and in the suburbs and the democrats are found in greater numbers in the slums of the cities. Man for man and woman for woman, in terms of those that build and maintain the place I would say the farms and the suburbs are very important to our strength as a nation. Calling a large segment of this population the scum that should be swept to the gutter is VERY idiotic.

iNow, The factors I am considering, is having a black president to explain the white part, and having woman's rights, and gay rights advances at the expense of males to explain the male part. What is interesting in the statistics is that native Americans seem also to be higher than blacks and Hispanics, and this is not explained by either having a black president or women's rights. Except perhaps if the male role is more dominant in White and Native American culture than in black and Hispanic culture. What are the suicide statistics, I wonder, in Germany, since Merkel? Or in Israel during Meir or India with Ghandhi. Not that different cultures might not accept women in dominant roles better than others, but I would think for example that an ISIS fighter, with a sex slave or two, would be upset if he reported to a woman. German culture certainly has its background tied up with the protestant revolution and such, with the New Testament as a guiding principl.e and with the patriarchal old testament as a footing. Enough similarities with the religious footing of white anglosaxon protestants to perhaps not be surprised if there is a correlation in terms of an increase in male suicides in Germany, since Merkel. I will see what I can find, along those lines. Regards, TAR From the Wiki article on suicide in the United Kingdom "Research undertaken by The Samaritans suggested that mental-health issues of middle-aged men and loss of masculine pride and identity are also major factors behind the high rate of suicide.[4]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_Kingdom but then again suicide in ISIS fighters has completely different motivations or maybe not...will have to think about how control and final ultimate control at that, plays a role in suicide bombings by Jihadists and mass shooting in the U.S...does seem to be a male control thing Lost the link, but saw that Germany suicide rates for both men and women actually went down in the last 20 years. The last ten years with Merkel as chancellor does not seem to have increased male suicide. In fact it seems that unification in general helped lower the overall numbers since the numbers were higher in East Germany than West, and I suppose people had fewer reasons to kill themselves after unification. So I have yet to find any statistics where one could look at male suicides in what was West Germany ​prior 2005 against male suicides in what was West Germany after Merkel. (that is, I have not yet found statistics showing the 10 years before Merkel and the 10 years after) germ.pdf There is this, that shows no particular increase in male suicides between 2005 and 2010. Merkel took office in 2005. So my thesis is NOT supported. so women's rights does not necessarily explain the male part

overtone, I was down to Virginia and back and most of radio stations I listened to on the road were religious or on the Rush country side of things. The laughable folks, the people that had to be reeled in to save the country were not the group you think needs fixing. My point is still clear. You want to tell Republicans how they need to be, to be acceptable. Regards, TAR and vice a versa There should be a better reality check made from both sides.

Gee, I think perhaps my search for how things work require linkages to the real world. Like the pheremones that various life forms release that others can and do sense and respond to. Actual chemical connections that bond people and things together. Physical realities were people give hugs and warmth and food and clothing and shelter and medical assistance to each other, that forms the bond. The safety and security of being in a symbiotic relationship. Perhaps me and the squid could work something out, but the bond would have to be real and meaningful to be real and meaningful. Just me knowing the squid was the last living thing other than me would no ensure the squid knew I was the last living thing other than it, and I don't know if the psychological bond that I might feel toward the squid would be requited. I appreciate you are looking for how consciousness and awareness and emotion and bonding and mind actually work, but you are looking for a "thing" that exists outside the body brain heart group, whereas I am thinking the other body brain heart group is the thing that exists outside the first. Not a bond substance. The theory of mind says that others have a mind and consciousness same as yours. This is something going on outside of your brain body heart group. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, Looking at the statistics, does not give any correlations that would jump out and say "this is why". That is why I am looking for something that changed for white males, across the board, that did not change for other groups, in the last 7 years, or in the recent time in which the rise in white male suicides has been noted. My thesis is simply that loss of control is a factor in suicides and as a group white males have been losing control more than other groups. On a different note, the statistics you linked suggested that there are a whole lot more self harm incidents than successful suicides. While all self harm incidents are not suicide attempts, the fact that successful attempts are made at a higher level in older populations than young, and in male rather than female, it might just be a case of capability. Perhaps white males, once of the mind to end their lives...do it. Regards, TAR

Overtone, if you are the only one left to be right, the correctness of your position would be quite moot. I keep saying the thing about all the people facets of human behavior you find wrong, to point out that we all have these proclivities and need to together moderate our behavior to take the other guy into account. You don't take Republicans into account, and that is the major problem in the country at the moment. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, I admit I have not studied the statistics to see why whites would be more effected by role changes than blacks, but lets say there has been, in the last 7 years a franchisement of black males, as that the leader of the pack is a black looking man, with black blood and who has therefore a real gene based tie to blacks, that no president before in the history of the U.S. ever had to such an obvious degree. A young black man growing up, can now say "I could grow up to be president" where previously that would have been a pipe dream. The good ole boy network, the backroom smoke filled meetings of white males, setting policy and making things happen, are things that have somewhat moved out of the mainstream of our culture. The white male dominated country club is still real, but society has asked those private clubs be opened to women and blacks and jews and Hispanics, and Japanese and other than European Wasps. These changes however are not necessarily progress for a White Male Anglo Saxon Protestant, or for a Catholic, or for any American that might be easily construed as a "crusader" due to their European heritage and in the gun sight of an ISIS jihadist. I don't have the statistics, but I have only my anecdotal "feelings" that there is a group in the country that "understand" our society, and others who seek to change it into something else. Best recent events that talk to this opinion are the sexual assaults in Germany carried out by Muslim Male Refugees who may have misinterpreted the meaning of a New Years hug by a strange woman. There are cultural differences between a white male American and a black male American. I heard of a recent event where 5 black males approached a father and daughter at gunpoint and told the father to leave. The five men each raped the female. The father returned with police and the rapists ran. Such behavior is completely foreign to me and completely contrary to my upbringing, and my expectations of proper male behavior. Those 5 men do not get it, as far as I am concerned, they are not doing it right. I sometimes feel misunderstood, when I utter such concerns, and feel embarrassed that I might sound racist to voice such concerns, but part of my manhood demands I not allow such behavior. If political correctness takes away my power to hunt these criminals down and put them in jail or shoot them in a shoot out, it is a degradation of my manhood. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, Well perhaps men, and white men in general do not have the automatic "king ot the household" role anymore, that they used to enjoy. It is certainly possible that the role of a white male is not the same as it was 50 years ago. Some things, I think, related to being the bread winner, and the protector of the house, have morphed over to include the female. And with Gay rights and all, the roles are very unclear, anymore, as to who is responsible for the outside of the house and who is the bread winner, and who takes care of the kids. So two things to consider as contributors to the shaking of the white males psyche are the blurring of sexual stereotypical roles, and the fact that a non white male is the President of the U.S. and has the power to enforce arbitrary laws at the expense of white male control, in business, in the home, on the street and on the world stage. For instance, during the Ebola outbreak, our military was sent to help in humanitarian roles. Not what our military was designed for. Not particularly what anybody signing up for the military thought was involved in protecting the U.S. Constitution from enemies, foreign or domestic. More a nurse maid role. Regards, TAR Not that drugs and alchohol and pain killers and heroine might not be involved as well, but consider also the increase role of government transfer payments in providing for the livelihood of white families. In depressed areas like West Virgina, struggling as the coal industry is cutting back, there are increasing numbers of white males, on the dole, and on meth. Being obliged to someone else for your food, clothing and shelter is a hit on the white males psyche. Between unenployement and disability and food stamps and social services taking kids away and such, I can imagine some white males feeling a loss of masculinity.

Gee, I did not know about the squid hunts, but remain of the mind that talking philosophy with a squid would have its limitations. My dad and I already have spoken about reincarnation and he seems to be more of the mind that it is not a real possibility than that it is indicated through Freudian psychology, as you suggest. I don't think we talk past each other, as much as I think we don't agree with each other's conclusions. You speak of emotion and the subconscious as if it is magic stuff. Stuff of gods and spirits and happening outside normal, sharable experience. I tend to think that the regular, normal universe we share, that is evident as the waking world, is quite amazing, long lived, and immense enough to suffice as quite old enough and big enough to contain the biggest and most numerous items we can think of. We don't need magic to flirt with the idea of infinity. I do however feel a bond with that which existed prior my birth and "have a feeling" that the bond will not be broken, at my death. Like the ripples in a pond, that continue to announce the pebble, long after it settles to the bottom, I figure my motion and energy will reverberate around the waking world, long after I stop functioning as a human. Consider this, with no magic required. This thread could be read by a researcher at a Mars settlement in the year 2118 by a young woman interested in early 21st century philosophy. Hello there, young lady...there is no limit in time to how long copies of this thread will be available to people capable of reading English. And the copies could be taken into space, beyond the Heliosphere, and survive even the death of our Sun...and future scientists may well understand what kind of pattern could be laid that would survive a black hole and construct a message that could be understood by a conscious mind, in the universe that begins when this one is collected back into a black hole singularity and develops a planet with life and consciousness...again. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, I did read the thread, and some of the links. I was thinking, in terms of the power lost, of the Oregon occupation. The government has taken land to protect the environment, and endangered species and such in spite of ranchers wanting to exercise control over the same land. I saw an older man, with successful children, sitting with a rifle in his hands, saying he was not going to jail. Suicide, to sit on federal land and suggest you will die, before having your freedom taken from you. Regards, TAR such a feeling I can understand as a white male perhaps non-white males can not understand the guy's feelings there is, in this country a certain distrust of big city intellectuals wielding power and evening the playing field at the expense of white males whose power it is that is being wielded that is the loss of control I am suggesting might cause there to be more suicide amongst white males than other than white males

Ten Oz, I have not read this thread yet, so I don't know the context and what has already been discussed, but my guess is that there is a cultural clash. Power that a white male thought was accrued to him by virtue of following the rules and being a solid, honorable team member and pulling his weight is taken from him and doled out to people that have not earned their spot on the team. A loss of control on a large scale. Regards, TAR

Overtone, OK, I accept that I might have my book wrong and certain impositions might just be impositions, and authoritative in nature, but that can come from the left or the right. The most important thing here though to overcome, to make my point in this thread correct and your point incorrect, is that once we think ourselves correct and the other guy incorrect, we are likely to try and enforce our will on the other guy. Better to find the 90 ways you are on the same team as the other guy than to find the 10 ways you are not. , Regards, TAR As I have said before, if you think corporate chiefs, stock holders, skin heads, gays, drug addicts, thiefs, liers, religious zealots, valley girls, construction workers, salesmen, and Holywood and members of the military industrial complex, and lawyers and bankers and organized crime, and gang members and NRA members and country club members and .... are wrong, there is nobody left to be right. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, OK I am trying to have Kerry, Obama, and Clinton take some responsibility as my Secretaries of State and President for the last 7 years. They are still my president and Secretaries of State, and I take responsibility for their actions and non-actions, as an American. My spreading of the blame, is between Bush and Obama and the one is not evil and the other angelic. We did not make the right decision, in retrospect, to encourage the Arab Spring and the rebellion against Assad. It has resulting in destabilizing Syria, the deaths of a quarter million people, giving ISIS a capital city in Raqqa, a humanitarian crisis, millions of refugees, increased influence of Russia and Iran in the area and perception of American weakness, by drawing a red line in the sand and letting people walk right across it. Regards, TAR

Overtone, ​ I have been around the last 7 years. The democrats in congress were in control of the legislative process. What bills came up and such. The Republicans blocked what they did not agree with. The republicans could not stop everything they disagreed with. We closed a lot of bases and weakened our military, quite without republicans being able to stop such. Maybe I overstated, that Obama could do whatever he wanted, but he did do a number of things that Republicans did not want to see get done. My point is, that party line voting is stupid. Stupid when a democrat does it, and stupid when a republican does it. The mischaracterization of the other persons position is the case whether it is the president accusing the congress of blocking common sense progress, or if it is the tea party accusing the president of weakening America in the eyes of the world. I find it hard to believe that adults can not sit and talk these things out, to where a bill passes with 90 percent agreeing with it. If there is a poison pill embedded in a piece of legislation, take the darn thing out. Regards, TAR And there have been swings to the left. Gay rights, government regulations, Quantitative Easing, military base closing, Obamacare, anti gun, and swelling ranks in government social service agencies and Michael Moore type activism putting FEMA and other federal agencies in charge of local affairs, is left wing type activity in my book. Issues worth talking about, but some changes in the last 7 years have been shoved down our throats, without us being asked if we think the thing is the right thing to do. Big city liberal thinking is not the total picture of how we think and how we want to see things go. There has to be a way to talk it out without demonizing the people you disagree with. Those people are equal citizens of the U.S. and deserve respect and a voice. Even when your party is in power. Regards, TAR

Not that I am not accepting blame for many issues in the world, as an American, but ​I believe we should accept responsibility for everything America does, whether it works out or not, and whether it is done with a Republican or Democrat or Socialist or Independent or Libertarian at the helm. And whether or not it is done with our personal knowledge and support or done against our personal better judgement.

Overtone, I am a little tired of you blaming everything on Bush. He has been out of the Whitehouse for 7 years. We have been in "better hands" according to you, since. Maliki did his killing after Bush, Assad did his killing after Bush. The Arab spring occurred during Hilary's watch. The current fight between Iran and the Saudis is happening on Kerry's watch. The thing is to decide what to do now, not to place blame. If a forest fire should destroy a neighborhood one should not blame Bush for not passing carbon emission regulations. If a Sunni should kill a Shia one should not blame Bush for giving Iraq a chance to establish a secular government under the watch of the UN and not under the rule of a dictator. At the start of the new year we face a global sell off of stocks after a China collapse and the Saudis and Iran, and North Korea's nuclear test, and ISIS and some general fear that things are not going well. If we are the leaders of the free world, we might not be doing the best job. But the rise of Islamic fundamentalism against the West is not due solely to Bush. Much of what Bush did was a reaction to global terrorism that was already happening. Some of the rise of ISIS has to be blamed on Clinton and Kerry and Obama. They were holding the reigns for the last 7 years. Regards, TAR Police thwart attack on "Hebdo" anniversary. Bush did not draw the offending comics. although international cooperation in the fight against global terrorism, instituted by Powell and Rice and Bush may have assisted the French authorities in establishing protocols to handle such attacks as just happened in Paris

Ten Oz, Oh...mortality...nevermind. Regards, TAR I have not read that thread either, but reading the first few posts, I am reminded of a unvoiced speculation of mine that there is a certain emasculation going on in the last half century, that empowers the state at the expense of the personal control of the individual. One of my theories on why people commit suicide is that it is a response to a loss of control over one's life. A desperate last attempt to have ultimate control. As I age, I am not as strong and fast and agile and virile as I was when I was younger. In both mind and body I am a little less capable. Personally I can approach these weaknesses and use strategies to overcome the lessening of one strength with the use of other facilities. I might use a digging stick as a level and lift up a rock and have my wife put dirt under it and lift it onto the surface in this fashion, now, where when I was 18 I would have just yanked the thing out of the ground. , But when the state makes rules to protect the weak against my strength, I personally take offense. I already made sure I did not take advantage of others with my size and strength and intelligence. The power I accrued through the purchase of tools and motors, the education in trades and processes I pursue and whatever "strength" I should amass by lifting weights or investing, or saving, or purchasing a weapon, or joining clubs and associations and having "brothers and sisters" at my back, are things that give me personal control of my life and are direct results of me exercising good judgement and delayed gratification throughout my life. It is disturbing for the rules to change and for people to take from me, what I planned to be mine, so I could always have a strong say in how my life was to be lived. For instance, I never purchased a weapon, because I had two daughters and would have had to keep the ammo separate from the weapon and locked to the extent that in an emergency I would take several minutes to become operative and would probably lose in that time any advantage that a weapon would give me. Plus I could accidently kill someone that was just trying to steal some money for drugs, and whose life should not be forfeited for such behavior. Plus, I knew some people who did have weapons, and if any emergency situation, like a riot or invasion, or revolution should come about, I knew where to go. However, if the rules change, and everybody has to outfit their guns with fingerprint checkers, I would have to reevaluate, since I would no longer be able to use one of my friend's weapons, in an emergency. I have always considered my neighbors to be people with good judgement and good values. I trust. If my government makes a rule that takes control of my situation from me, because my government does not trust me to use good judgement and be a good person, and the law negates the plans and effort, that I have be executing for 50 years, I am bound to feel a bit put upon. A little emasculated. Past what age alone has inflicted. This loss of control might be acceptable if strategies to regain control can be constructed. But a continual erosion of personal power might be taking a toll on the male phyche. Regards, TAR

Gee, I don't know what happened to Ganz, nor if our discussion is approaching the ideas of sentience and consciousness transferral and such that he/she was interested in talking about in regards to infinity and death. But about the squid, and subjectivity, one of the ideas about consciousness that is important to cede early on, is the "theory of mind". That is, that another person is not an objective lump of brain material, but in possession of a mind, and consciousness, same in general, as the mind and consciousness that you personally possess. Not so, with a squid. The squid has life and in this is victorious over entropy same as you are and I am, but does not have the use of language enough to talk about his/her/its experience of the world. Regards, TAR