I agree with your point that a big picture doesn’t emerge “when two disparate parties
combine to form some amalgamated ideology of nothing.” Know what that’s called? Compromise. The best outcome that is possible using a “compromise” strategy is that both parties walk away from the negotiations feeling equally ripped off while the underlying issues remain unaddressed. No, compromise is not what I’m talking about.

About reality being “objective,” wouldn’t it be just dandy if one person or group could actually claim to know what “reality” really is. Such a belief is is a laughable oversimplification. It is part of the spin that’s so pervasive today and that makes it impossible to co-create truly viable solutions.

I do completely agree with you that we don’t find the truth by meeting somewhere in the middle. If that’s your definition of consensus, then this form of “consensus” is as worthless as compromise.

Compromise and what you call consensus are worlds apart from what I’m talking about. What I am pointing out is that people of good will tend to see different parts of the larger picture with greater and lesser clarity. Only by combining these deeper awarenesses that live underneath our posturing, positioning and spin do we have any prayer at all of co-discovering what you call “objective truth.”

In my opinion, any leader or aspiring leader who does not understand this and who does not know how to effectively facilitate this kind of “synergy” has no business being a leader.

You rightly asked that this has to do with McCain. What it has to do with him is that I have yet to see him demonstrate a strong enough capacity to facilitate this kind of synergy for me to feel excited about him becoming President. (For instance, my impression is that Huckabee is far better at this than McCain.)

What this has to do with McCain is that his statements are perfect portraits of our current political atmosphere in which what passes as fact is usually spin. However, I believe our job is to find grains of truth hidden within spin and separate them from spin rather than to dismiss wholesale what people of good will say. I believe our job is to cobble together the dots of truth from multiple and seemingly conflicting sources in order to assemble what you call objective truth.

If you find my call to a higher level of thinking than anti-intellectual black-and-white absolutism to be rambling, I would point you to the objective fact that is an “intellectual conservative” website.

~~ David

I appreciate what you wrote about quick fly-overs being all that’s possible. My hope is that when you and I do such fly-overs that we don’t leave thinking we truly understand what we’ve seen unless what we’re looking at is a very brief and thoroughly self-contained piece.

Your point about the site looking like too many of those “self-help” kinds of sites that trade on the fads-of-the-moment is well-taken. My intention was to utilize that format so that people looking for self-help might find something far more substantial than they are used to finding.

I so agree with your point about the need and value of expressing things simply. Becoming better at this has been a long-standing challenge for me because of having been so over-educated.

As you rightly pointed out, my style tends more to be to invite people into the “deepwater discussion” that I believe must be engaged in if we are to succeed at developing truly viable solutions to profoundly complex systemic problems.

Thank you, too, for your kind apology about your response might have included your charge about a hot button that someone else pressed. I inherited a love of Constitutional Law from my father, for whom that was his most favorite area of law. I too have huge passion about wanting to bust spin in all the forms it takes since this form of lying is contributing to our gridlock rather than helping resolve it.

David

A “big picture” does not emerge when two disparate parties combine to form some amalgamated ideology of nothing. It is entirely possible for one person to be right and another person to be wrong – the truth isn’t always “in the middle”. Reality is objective – it is not the result of a consensus of different opinions and perspectives. In application to the subject at hand, John McCain either lied or he didn’t. The things he said are either true or they are untrue. What your rambling, existential tract had to do with that, I still cannot ascertain.

Loading in my LifeDrive, though, it *does* look like too many of those “self-help” kinds of sites that trade on te fads-of-the-moment.

Also, I firmly believe that anything really worth saying can be said simply — w/o a host of sawbuck words to obsfuscate the meaning or mechanics there-of{grin}. I base this on my own (over-long in the opinion of some{grin}) lifetime of chewing through the words & ideas of giants. Everything idea of consequence has been simply expressed and easy to the understanding of the average guy.

The upside of this insight is it tnds to keep me tethered to Earth in deepwater discussions.

- musculus

PS:
I fear I must beg your pardon.

Looking back at my previous post, it maybe that you bore the brunt of someone else’s press of a hot-button: I have an unreasonably strong love of the Constitution and an unreasoning hot hate for the type of lying, self-serving sack of dog-droppings of the type that McCain is proving himself to be…

– m

Since my IntegrityPledge.org website gave you some chuckles (such is the penalty for casual fly-overs in our age of instant pundits), maybe I’ll pitch it to Dennis Miller! My book about how to restore integrity (which is NOT the primary focus of the Integrity Pledge website) is anything but pop-psych — it is actually the antidote to pop-psych.

David

McCain lies. Even if it was **only** limited to the Romney attack, it would still show a lack of character. Integrity can’t exist w/o character.

Add to that incl. a member of La Roza on his team, as his Hisp. advis., while simulanteously proclaiming an “ah-ha” moment on boarder security… well just ho stupid would I have to be to believe his sincerity on that?

I have read quotes that all these drop-out sending their supporters to McCain do so because because they hate Romney.

I am glad I found out the depth of Fred’s and Rudy’s commitment to our country and their so-called principles.

[hearsay alert on]
Several pundits have mentioned that one departing candidate — I believe it was the Huck — said he couldn’t stand Ronmey because he didn’t understand how poliics was played… and wouldn’t play anyway. He extended his remark to incl the other candidates.
[heresay alert off]

Seeing the body language between these “gentlemen” when they are together — both w/each other & w/Romney — I can believe it. That several sources state the same indictment adds weight to the charge. It is (for me) a working assumption.

What a *noble* reason to violate your expressed principles. Forever on, I will not vote for any of these “gentlemen” who have dropped out. If in 4 or 8 yrs Fred or Rudy, etc, runs again, I will remind any who will listen the depth of their principles. That their over-riding principle is “Politics before all!”: befoe country, before honor.

- musculus

This mind set erodes the fundamental underpinnings of what makes democracy work. What is it going to take for us to finally understand that this is an anti-democracy attitude? What is it going to take for us to finally realize that the underpinnings of democracy are based on an understanding that no one person, group ideology ideology is capable of seeing the whole picture?

I believe we live in a culture dominated not only by spin but by the refusal to join together to co-discover and co-create solutions based on synergy instead of polarization. Synergy is a problem-solving strategy that is based on the assumption that no single person, group or perspective grasps the entire picture. Synergy presumes that viable solutions only emerge when we dialoge from the assumption that YOU see a piece of the larger picture more clearly than I do, that I see a piece of the larger picture more clearly than you do, and that what this larger picture REALLY is can only emerge as a result of combining the core of what you see with the core of what I see.

This kind of co-discovery and co-creation process cannot occur in a culture ruled by spin in which one group pushes their own perspectives while bad-mouthing the perspectives of others who, because of their orientation, are more attuned to other equally important aspects of the larger picture that need to be addressed in order for truly viable and durable solutions to be co-created.

What is it going to take for intellectual conservatives (that is the name of this organization, after all!) to rise up to demand that the rules of engagement be upgraded as a way of restoring integrity?

How’s this for polarizing: John McCain is a lying little weasel who could pass a lot more easily for a center-left Democrat than any kind of conservative. There. I’m getting so tired this election cycle of hearing about “polarizing” and “negative campaigning” anytime someone attempts to tell the truth about any of these jokers’ records. Differentiating between candidates based on reality is not “negative campaigning”. And unity in dishonesty is far worse than “polarization”.

I believe that the “I” word (integrity) is thrown around far to liberally (how’s that for a double entendre?!) because far too many people are unclear about what integrity really is.

For most people, integrity is a vague and abstract philosophical concept rather than the concrete and actionable way of life that it can become once we understand just a little bit about our three core drives for personal authenticity, connection with others and having positive impact in the world.

3D Integrity lives at the intersection of these three core drives. The more the American people understand this, the more easily they will be able to spot true integrity in their political candidates and other leaders.

A highly acclaimed new book called “The New IQ: How Integrity Intelligence Serves You, Your Relationships and Our World” provides this clarity that is especially important during a presidential election year.

I believe it is a book that no political candidate, and no conservative or libertarian, can afford to be without… nor can liberals afford to be without it either!