Abstracting from the real: definition quarrells won't save the republic
It is true that we are at a crossroads in this—our present—regime: we have been brought to this point by forces which are clearly and readily identifiable, and it is up to us—you and me—sublime9, USMCalmighty—to define where we are at and why;the next question, once reasonable clarity about our political situation is obtained is to ask a question that was posed by V. I. Lenin in a short tract that he wrote early in the 20th century—"What is to be done?"—now you will notice that this title mirrors Leo Strauss' title "What is Political Philosophy?"—in that it asks a question?;Strauss answered that question, but his answer was more than an answer, it was the very transformation of man and world, and due to his concerted political effort our political horizon—in Nietzsche and Hiedegger's strong sense of "Fundamental Ontology," or "Being and Time"—our options for political action have been somewhat narrowly constrained; but the basic desire of all of us should be clear definition of the situation that were in—and that has quite a bit to do with the Los Alamos scientists, in many ways heros of mine, if political opponents (there is as much room in science for diagreement as there is in politics, if we still live in a reasonably humane world, which if I were to deny it, I could not bear to live; my own approach to the problems today has been to see them in the light of America's development over the whole course of the 20th century, and this I assert has everything to do with the Universe/(city) of Chicago, especially its political science and philosophy departments; the University worked in tandem with Nazi Germany and with Heidegger, who operated on essentially Nietzschean premises, on hypothesis, and thus positioned us in an odd way, to say the least, at the end of world war II;another revolution followed this one—culminated in the 1960s with the death of four leaders—starting with chief executive Kennedy, concluding with the death of his brother, presidential hopeful, Robert Kennedy; these assassinations were necesary, because the war in Vietnam was at stake, and these combined forces opposed it, and threatened it and, especially, the enormous wealth that it promised those financiers who built the military hardware; it is no accident that after the events of the 1960s that the country faced one of the severest challanges to its constitutional government that it has ever faced, and Nixon was among those whose activities can be traced back to even before the election of Kennedy(Christopher Hitchens has detailed the crimes of these ment better that I can do: in His Harper's magazine article, then in his book on Kissinger (please Mr. Kissinger, do not assassinate me for agreeing with Mr.Hitchen's that you were responsible for some very nefarious deeds, to say the least of dubious constitutional integrity). If we refuse to start with this history—and attempt to gain clarity from this standpoint—we will miss the opportunity, I feel certain, to save the constitutional Republic!—Long live the Republic;however, we must recognize that we are in an age comparable (see Oswald Spengler "The Decline of the West": Spengler started out too in the early 20th century trying to analyze the events in his native Germany, but he found that a much deeper historical analysis was required before he could gain clarity in his situation; he opposed Fascist rule in Germany, and I believe he was persecuted for this, for he refused to surrender to tthe heady vision of the revolutionaries who thought revolutions were all about dancing in the streets—they are instead about blood in the streets, and death and devastating losses from which it could take nations decades, if not centuries, to overcome.) to the age of the decay of Rome, essentially when the Republic collapsed and the age of the Cesaers (Julius or Borgia) began: So let's start with history.