Week12

There are many conditions it is justified to break the law. one of the major reason would be if the law is unjust or immoral. There are many other conditions that can be justified for breaking the law. example - life and death situations or in case of self defense. example if some people are chasing you to hurt or even kill you and you try to get away by breaking into someone's car or break into someone house to hide maybe able to say justify. your intention are to save yourself, not to to harm the owner of the car or the owner of the house. These things rarely happen. what majorly happen are the unjust laws. in my opinion unjust laws are law that discriminated on a group of people, treat a group differently than the other and so on. there are many unjust laws in the United States that can have legitimate uses of civil disobedience. Example - there are 7 states in the US that do not allow atheists to run for public office. Just because they do not believe in super natural beings, they are treated lesser than others and treated unfairly. those kind of law can be define as unjust law and can be uses on civil disobedience. women in Saudi Arabia are not allow to drive. these are unjust law. I have to agree with St.Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all" because if it is unjust and not make it equal for everyone or not treating everyone equally, then what is the point of having that law?  

Week#11 M&M

Classical liberals like Mill usually argue that so long as you aren't being coerced or forced to do something by the state, then you are free. People sympathetic to Marx are likely to argue that freedom requires that we are protected from forms of coercion that stem from economic disparities, and that this perhaps requires some kind of active state intervention to make sure that we are free to make our own economic choices.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree with Mill or Marx? Or perhaps a little with  both?

it's a little bit of both and then some. as long as you are not the last person on earth, you are not really free. as long as you are with people, (at least one person) there will be set of rules you have to follow. so you need government (even if it is not physical one , there are set of rules you can consider as government). once there is some form of government, you are not really free. the question is if you want to govern a lot or govern less? in Mill's way he prefer to be govern less and in Marx's way it is somewhat more of government involvement than Mill's way. They both have their advantage and disadvantages. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do to be able to stabilize community and steady growth of community. example - Taxation. nobody want to pay tax but government must force people to pay tax because there are a lot of good things governments do for people that require money. Things like roads, bridges, school, defense and so on.. sometimes government will have to force people to do something for their own safety or safety of the others. example - if you live near a forest fire, and refuse to leave, the government will probably drag you out and if you gonna blame that the government violate the freedom, you should have left and burn in the fire. it is like those people in Sovereign citizen movement , they will do and think they are answerable only to their particular interpretation of the common law and are not subject to any government statutes or proceedings. that's just crazy to me. to me Mill's way are going to that SCM. In Marx way, the government have to provide and make sure the need of the citizen are fulfill. we all know it's not free. you have to pay for your share. government will control what you eat, what share you get. in hard time government will force you to work for the country in return for the supports you are getting, so it is not total freedom as well. basically it is like you lose some, you win some situation. also, if government is providing all the needs, the citizen will not work hard or not work at all and it will hurt the country badly. freedom really is a very complex subject. All the system has flaws, even in the fantasy stories like star trek, where the poverty is eliminated and everyone needs are taken care off, they are still bound by the rules and regulations because total freedom will bring chaos within a short time. so we kind of need both Mill and Marx ways and then some more to make sure that everyone get the needs for survival and also enough freedom without getting in each other way but i don't think we have find that system yet. 

Yes we can but no we won't

According to Buddhism, the main source of our suffering is our preoccupation with our own desires. can we live with Buddha teachings? yes we can but will we live like that? no we won't. it is mainly because of our society. Also it is mainly because people do not have deep understanding of Buddhism. first i would like to talk about deep understanding of Buddhism. Buddhism mainly focus on the mind of people over physical material. in fact, you are not even require to go to pagodas or temple like some other religions require to. Buddhism said Suffering is said to be caused by selfish cravings and desires. The way to enlightenment, for Buddhism, therefore involves detaching from our narrow concern with ourselves, escaping the prison of our own desires and illusions. it is easier said than done. even those who claim they are true Buddhist can not follow those teachings and get away from selfish cravings and desires. Our mind is always has greed, anger, jealousy, pride and so on... even the calmest like monks or priests still do have greed and anger. it is really hard to get rid of them unless you are enlightened. most Buddhists are not enlightened. they know the teachings but they can not follow. let me give you an example what i meant - say two mother try to buy really popular Halloween costume for their kids and only one left at store, they will probably argue for who grab it first and probably fight for it. it's anger. the loser will probably get jealous, the winner will probably gloat with pride..... if we break down to them step by step you can see both women suffered. even the winner who got the costume suffer. before she won it, she probably worry she might not get it, she also angry at her opponent, she's probably was also jealous of the rival. she did all for the love of her child and yet her mind suffered so many bad emotions. the losing side can be say same she will be angry, jealous, sad, disappointed and so on. so even doing something out of love can make you suffer. so to be really peaceful and really escape from suffering you will have to let go of a lot of thing even including the case of love ones. that's hard to do. there are some men i know who are tough as nail. you can smash their head with a brick and they wouldn't blink but those same men will break down to tears if they see their sons or daughter get hurt or suffering from illness or get accidents. they have desires for their children to get better they are really worry and it's burning inside them. so even if it is not selfish desires it still hurt and burn you. buddha taught and showed ways to escape form those suffering but in reality it is really hard to follow. he himself had to take the hard road before he found enlightenment. he was a crown prince and set to be king of kings (many kings served under his father) the day he left the palace was the day his son was born, he came to look at his son face and left the palace at midnight when no one would notice. would anyone be able to leave a king's life and new born baby to find inner peace? i doubt only a handful of people can do that. i know i wouldn't. i met some monks who try to follow Buddha's step. many are more peaceful than us and yet even they have some desire. ofc they suffer less than us because they can cut many more desire than us normal people. even entering monkshood is hard. you have to leave your family behind. that's something i or many people can not do.  so you really have to understand more and deeper to a point to even see things like love and bonds are also part of suffering. when i say love is suffering i do not meant Buddha taught not to love. Buddha taught to love everyone but not with selfish desire. example if you love your family it will be just your like "my mom, my son, my daughter" you would not be able to love a homeless person like your mom. it is simply because you are still selfish. Buddha want us to love everyone equally. if you can love your mom or someone on the street same, then you probably are free from selfishness and desire. that's really deep and hard to do. there are some who can do better than many. example - pope Francis, he washed feet of inmate on holy Thursday. he's probably one of the most influential person in the world. that doesn't effect him and he did it with love and kindness.  then there are some helping children in war zone with whatever they have. they gave up all they have in their comfortable lives and go to help anyone who need (doesn't matter what color of the skins) those people are more free from selfishness and desires than many of us because their inner are cleaner and more pure than us. Secondly our society won't help to live with the way Buddha taught. think about it. we live in very entitled society. always "me me me", always " my my my" and always "mine mine mine". our society support that kind of behaviors. look at the Kadashians. they are self centered with no talents what so ever and yet they have millions for fans who want to be like them. heck to be honest most of us can't live without our smart phone, twitter, facebook and instagram. things that actually make more selfish, and make us more self center. so can we live like Buddha teachings? yes some can (like the Amish ppl, who live very simple and minimum which basically is a step closer than most of us) but will we? no we won't cuz our mind won't let go of many things. we are too attach to many and we can't easily break away