What has undermined the essence of America.

(I tried to find information about this from a friend who is a former KGB agent, but he was not involved in this type of activity, so he knew nothing about this side of the KGB.)
  Subversion and creating instability in the U.S.A. was a large part of the KGB. However my friend's modest part was simply to listen to radio broadcasts from the West and tell his superiors if anything interesting was mentioned. [No James Bond stuff.] Incidentally, he hates Communism even more than me--which is quite a feat. I have deep hatred of any totalitarian systems. On the other hand you can understand his point of view. He lived under Communism so he witnessed the evil of the system first hand. He incidentally did not think that the KGB had the ability to undermine American society all on its own. So I bring here information from another KGB that thought that it did. Also from my point of view the type of civil society that exited in America no longer exists there. Something obviously has already destroyed the very nature of America. This makes me wonder, "what could have caused this?" So here I present my essay on this subject)



[The way the KGB did this is by becoming or recruiting leaders of movements that are involved in destabilizing America like Christan pastors of liberal Protestant churches and the homosexuals and feminists. For example, just think about homosexuals. Years ago this was something dirty and sick that something someone did privately. Now it is a public movement. Why? People need to start asking "Why?" The question is not if homosexuality is a sin or not. But why is this political movement?]




(I want to mention that I have seen the results of what he is talking about in America. But this would require a whole different essay. Like I heard from a veteran of WWII: "The America I fought for no longer exists."}

Here is just one example from todays news (on Overlawyered blog) which shows this: Texas honor student jailed for missing too much school”

by Walter Olson on May 27, 2012

“Diane Tran said she works both full-time and part-time jobs, in addition to taking advanced and college level courses,” and her parents have “split up and moved away” leaving her in charge of a younger sister, which make it hard to keep to the exact school day. Judge Lanny Moriarty did not seem sympathetic: “If you let one run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em?” [CBS Atlanta]

This a perfect example of Legal Positivism which is in exact opposition to the very basic principles of natural rights that America was founded on.
This example show the basic American principle of justice today: "heteronomous relativism." This gives near or complete totalitarian force to any person that has a position in any branch of the America government. The main enemies of America today are the people in the America government.






Bezmenov "It’s a great brainwashing process, which goes very slow[ly] and is divided [into] four basic stages. The first one [is] demoralization; it takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years which [is required] to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxist-Leninist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged, or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism (American patriotism).

The result? The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties (drop-outs or half-baked intellectuals) are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, [and the] educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. They are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind[s], even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words, these people... the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To [rid] society of these people, you need another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society."



also see:http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/former-kgb-agent-yuri-bezmenov-how-the-kgb-demoralized-propagandized-and-indoctrinated-youth-using-schools/


As a final note to my readers I want to mention a ray of hope I have seen. Somehow or other there are in some American universities a few very powerful analytic philosopher and thinkers, like Brian Caplan and Michael Huemer and Kelly Ross. When I see people like that on the horizon it gives me hope for America. I think Caplan is the most analytic. Ross is the greatest builder. Huemer is the greatest architect of a political argument and the ability to perceive the flaws of logic of all philosophers since Hume.

Also see: you tube Yuri Bezmenov: KGB Psychological Warfare and Subversion Strategy.

The way to save America is simple. One word: Bible. For Christians this would be the Old and New Testament, Aquinas, and Augustine and learning John Locke. For Jews this would be the Musar [books fromthe Middle Ages explaining the moral principles of Torah]. The difference between Jews and Christians I respect. I know there are questions about the spiritual realm that I don't understand. But I know that America needs the holy Torah. Period. [And obviously getting rid of Islam from American soil.]

How the KGB influenced American Universities--the question of survival of the USA

The question of survival of the USA
[for more information: http://uselessdissident.blogspot.com/2008/11/interview-with-yuri-bezmenov.html]

I have noticed for a long time that the villain in all American movies is always the businessman or an American scientist, never a real criminal. I also noticed a shift in American universities starting from the 1960's when the social science and humanities departments of American universities began to teach radical Marxism under the code name "social justice" or as "progressive liberalism."
Until this very day, the regular staple of the diet of the political pseudo sciences is Hegel, Marx, Rousseau, Freud, Nietzsche;-- never actual ideas that America was founded on. They will never even mention the Second Treatise of Civil Government of John Locke. This is the founding document of America. You would think it would have some place in a political science course. No? Instead it is treated like the plague. May Marx and Lenin save us from thoughts of economic and personal freedom.

The problem is that all three branches of American government have now united to form one monolithic government. There is no more division of power. What the president want the states to say, they say. What he wants the Supreme Court to rule they rule. Whatever he wants passed in Congress is passed. They're all working together to create a new type of Soviet America.
Recently Arizona decided not to put the president on the ballot because he was not born in the USA, yet by coercion he was forced to concede.

Simply put the America people are no longer in control of their government.



"Bezmenov [a former KGB agent who defected to Canada and was murdered by the KGB] stated that he was also instructed not to waste time with idealistic Leftists, as these would become disillusioned, bitter, and adversarial when they realized the true nature of Soviet Communism. To his surprise, he discovered that many such [idealistic Leftists] were listed for execution once the Soviets achieved control. Instead, Bezmenov was encouraged to recruit such persons as were in large circulation, established conservative media, rich filmmakers, intellectuals in academic circles, and cynical, ego-centric people who lacked moral principles."

He also explained that the main (84%) efforts of the KGB was to subvert American values. Marxism was brought to America shores during the 1960s and those students are now in power. He says that the job of subverting America has already be accomplished and over accomplished. The USA is the last country of freedom. This is the last breath of freedom. It will fail unless Americans wake up now and force the government to abandon the communists system that is already in the USA.





What I do not like about the USSR is based my basic idea that people have a right to freedom, but also on stories I heard from Irina(a Ukrainian woman who just passed away). She remembered how when the Communists got power over Russia, the Communists came into her city and simply and plainly took everything in sight--cows, grain, all food stuffs, and whatever they wanted. This was Communism in real life--not how it is displayed in American textbooks.







From http://www.usnews.com/news

"The material in the Vassiliev notebooks corroborates the suspicion that Hiss was a longtime agent of Soviet military intelligence. That echoes the findings of Venona Project analysts, who concluded years ago that the code name "Ales" in the intercepted Soviet cables was "probably Alger Hiss."
The KGB files also corroborate that Julius Rosenberg, who was executed for espionage in 1953 along with his wife, Ethel, was indeed a Soviet agent.
Other Americans are vindicated by Vassiliev's KGB notes. For instance, they say that Robert Oppenheimer continuously refused to help the KGB, much to Moscow's frustration. After a public investigation into his loyalty, Oppenheimer lost his U.S. security clearance. Like many other accused "Red sympathizers," he spent the rest of his life defending his reputation. The Vassiliev documents concur with numerous other sources that show it was other scientists and technicians on the atomic bomb program who helped the Soviets develop a nuclear weapon."

Why does Kant want morality to be universal?

Why does Kant want morality to be universal? The reason is that he wants its existence to be perceived by reason. And reason perceives universals. (note 1) Now some universals are laws like laws of math. Some universals are other types of predicates. But Kant knows that he can't make morality into a universal like laws of math. Remember he was highly influenced by Hume. So he wants the universal morality to be a universal "ought".

 He also wants a certain ambiguity about its nature, but not about its existence. This is his opinion for dinge an sich (things in themselves). ("Unconditioned realities" in the language of philosophers.)

 Use the modification of Kant by Hegel. With Kant by himself you can't get reason to perceive the character of ethical laws. You need Reason to get to where Kant is trying to go.
[I should mention you always need to modify Kant. The surface level of what he says is sometimes wrong. But if you look into the deeper idea behind the words he is often implying a true and deep idea.]






  That personal freedom and economic freedom are valuable really seems to be  from  the separation of realms and different grounds of validity.

[note: The third formulation of the Categorical Imperative is “the Idea of the will of every rational being as a will that legislates universal law.” (4:432)]

At any rate, let me just say that I think the human problem needs a lot more that political or economic solutions. The problem is not just the dimension of morality, but the basic question what is the meaning of life? (This was the primary question of the 1960's, and sadly the answer to most people was political Liberation movements or fanatic Jewish or Eastern religious cults.)

I admit I have no great answer for this. But I do have an idea. It starts with  Maimonides. Because Maimonides managed to mediate between the two poles of Reason and Faith and formed a kind of synthesis or lightening rod. With him there is no contraction between Aristotle and the Torah.

The ground of holiness is different from that of reason. The radical Maimonides synthesis between Torah and Aristotle seems to me to need some improvement. First of all I am a Neo-Platonist. This is by education and also it is the way I think. Reading Plato when I was a teenager it think contributes to me tendency to say unpopular opinions and not be afraid to do so. I think clearly the example of Socrates contributed to this. But at any rate, I see spiritual reality just as real as atoms and molecules.


The thing which complicates this issue is often a doctrine that seems promising, seems to have a long string of crazy people attached to it. Since what makes spirituality interesting is its human element --it is impossible to separate it from the actions of people following a certain doctrine. What I mean is if the Talmud  was just some intellectual exercise that had nothing to do with people, then first of all they would not be interesting. So the fact that they have to so with people means that people following their teachings have to indicate to us to some degree the qualities of that doctrine.

However I do agree with Maimonides in that we should deny ‘there are good reasons for the polarization between faith and knowledge (which became an empirical feature of European modernity). There are no such reasons, on Maimonides' view,

The question is of course why is there no conflict? Is it because because Jewish theism – proved hospitable to and incorporated rational inquiry from the beginning, in the form of Greek philosophy.

However there is a ground of spirituality that is different from reason. The ground of spirit and the ground of reason in some way are in conflict because the principles are different but they are not in conflict in that both are important parts of what it means to be human.
If this is not clear just think of a circle of values. The closer you get to the top the more numinous value you have and less form. The more towards the bottom the more form and less numinous content

Notes
(note 1) Universals. I have (let's say for an example) two white pieces of paper in front of me. Do they have something in common? Yes. Whiteness.  So Whiteness is a universal. It is something that individuals have in common.

Appendix: One reason why Kant ought to be important to people is he provides a nice modification of Plato and neo Platonism. This is to where Jewish Philosophers were trying to go after the Rambam, [e.g. Crescas and Abravenal,] The Rambam was going pretty much with Aristotle and this seems to me to be a problem because knowledge of the physical form does not give knowledge of universals plus some basic problem in the Metaphysics. Maybe the Rambam can account for these problems? It would be nice to know if he does. But I do no have  Guide with me to do the research to see if he does. [I mean it is likely that he did hint to some answers in the Guide but I have not heard that anyone has found such hints.]

Where there are Muslims, things go "Boom!"

Iran’s chief of staff vowed Sunday to eliminate Israel.
As usual in the media there is not a peep.
The problem here is simple cause and effect. Where there are Muslims, things blow up. Most Jewish and Christian people don't have explosives in their underwear. Let's see now, who attacked us on 9/11? Muslims. Who was the attempted shoe bomber? A Muslim. Who attacked the USS Cole? Muslims. So, who should we be watching? Buddhists? Catholic nuns? I don't think so!!


In face of the Muslim threat to the continuance of Human Life on Earth, I suggest that people should prepare a survival kit. And in particular, I recommend the essay of Dr. Leonard Horowitz on the how to protect oneself in case of a Terrorist Chemical or Biological attack. Also notice the covertness blog I have a link to which has lots of good suggestions.
http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/apocalypse/bio_chem_guide.html

I should mention it is a good idea to be part of a community in which people care about each other.  This is the reason there are communities that I decided to leave when I saw this kind of relationship between people was publicly advertised, but in fact missing. In fact, I have become wary of people that are too friendly. Over friendliness is the first most important sign that someone has something up their sleeve.

The problem with Muslims I think is that they are de-evolving. This would probably be because  of lack of female choice. Female choice is an important part of evolution. When the females choose the best guys the species improves. Muslim women have not had female choice so it is inevitable they would degenerate into a sub species, while the rest of the human species evolves upward.

Now this does not seem like a John Locke kind of concept of the common rights of man. But for that to work mankind would have to be one species. And we are rapidly evolving into two different ones.
The West is becoming Homo Occident. Muslims are becomes Homo Simia

.
After all the most basic assumption in all American universities (outside of the natural science departments) is relativism. The trouble with relativism is not just that is is wrong, but that it is self refuting. It makes a claim that you can't make a claim about truth values that is independent of the person making the claim. So it denies its own claim to truth.
I quote [http://www.euvolution.com/euvolution/useless.html]: Today's postmodern philosophers deny the very existence of science, nature and truth, largely because their favorite verbal abstraction of "equality" is undermined by the brute statistical reality of human biological differences. The philosopher Richard Rorty recently informed us in Atlantic Monthly that " 'The homosexual,' 'the Negro,' and 'the female' are best seen not as inevitable classifications of human beings but rather as inventions that have done more harm than good." Therefore, according to Rorty, many deconstructionists "go on to suggest that quarks and genes probably are [inventions] too." You have to be as eminent a philosopher as Rorty to believe that the category of "the female" is a mere social convention.:


The way one might defend moral relativism would be by saying a claim about moral claims is a meta moral claim and not a moral claim in itself. It is about the set of all moral claims, and thus not self refuting.  See John Seale in his refutation of all relativism. But his refutation does not seem to apply to moral relativism
The aspect of orthodoxy that is bad is that it makes fanaticism into a norm. And then goes out of its way to claim that that is not what it is doing. This is a new invention and has nothing to do with traditional Judaism.

I think there is a deep spiritual reality inside the Torah and Talmud.

This was a question asked of me a few years back and my answer:

 (from the beginning of this May 4.5.12):"First, I am in need of some kind of deprogramming. I attended aish ten years ago for ten months and have never been able to shake the feeling that I am a bad person for not being orthodox. Any suggestions?
Second, do you believe or think that the Torah was actually given to Moses on Mt. Sinai? Everything I read in the academic world (James Kugel and some of his footnotes, David Carr at Union Theological, several others here and there) tells me that Orthodox Jews are mistaken in this belief. Also, the Greeks began the idea of authorship and it it is even likely that until Hellenic times no one said that Moses wrote the Torah. But once they gave authorship out, the Jews gave the Torah to Moses.
Third, are all of us ex-aishers suffering cult like symptoms of guilt and fear? Are all Jews suffering this as well? What is the future of Orthodoxy? I think it will always “pretend” because the community matters so very much. But what do you think?"


Torah from heaven is not the same as Torah from Sinai.
The Written and Oral Torah are inspired from Heaven. That has nothing to do with the physical location of where there were written. From what we know from the Rambam many parts of the Torah are allegories and were never meant to be taken literally. That includes Genesis.
Genesis was meant to tell us Creation ex nihilo. (That already cancels Orthodoxy. The irony is they like to claim others are falsify Torah.)





First Torah from Sinai is often confused with the issue of "Is the Talmud from Sinai?"
Part of the problem in the Orthodox world is that they succeeded in spreading the claim that everyone in Europe accepted that the Talmud was from Mount Sinai. This stacks the deck for Orthodox Judaism.
But it is false. No Jews in Europe thought the Talmud was given at Mount Sinai. The very idea in itself is ludicrous. Jews thought it is a great book that explains with great logical rigor how to keep the Torah. Saying it is a great book is not the same as the claim that it is from Sinai. No Jewish people in America thought the Talmud was from Sinai before the fanatic Orthodox came. The way the got people to believe this is by the fact that faith is a good. When it gets too expensive people don't buy it. The orthodox paid people to believe it by the promise of sex, shiduch, and money.

[My parents and all their friends had never heard of the idea that Talmud was from Sinai and if it had been mentioned they would have laughed.]


However being influenced by Plato and Kant (I believe in the world of Forms), I have to admit that I think there is a deep spiritual reality inside the Torah and Talmud [numinous is the current word for it]. (The dinge als sich selbest- the thing in itself.) Normally I would have just gone with Schopenhauer on this question and called God "the Will" and be done with it [i.e. an irrational force]. But according to later writings of Schopenhauer the the thing in itself is multidimensional. The irrational will is just one dimension. So I am led back to the basic idea of God being good in the long run. i.e the God of Moses, Job and Plato.
First I think holiness belongs to the realm of the thing in itself.
note: Things-in-themselves are the way that reality exists apart from our experience, our consciousness, our minds, and all the conditions that our minds might impose on phenomenal objects.

The Talmud excels.

The Talmud rocks!

The separation of milk and meat is in fact based on verses. This is one area in which the Talmud excels. Even if I think the Talmud is not perfect, but it excels in certain areas; and understanding verses is one of those areas. Though I am not holding in that subject matter right now, in working out in a logically rigorous manner the meaning and the laws of different commandments the Gemara [Talmud] does an excellent job, and in fact the only job.



It has been many years since I looked at that subject but so I don't remember the exact idea but just for an example of the way the Gemara looks at verses from a rigorous perceptive look at Bava Metzia at the end of chapter 11 and the many long Tosphot there.