 
Philosophical Works 2010-2014

by Gregory Coffin

Other titles include:

Sterling Honor

The Gospel of Reason

A Social Carol

The Justified Trilogy

The following is a collection of works that I have written that address a wide range of topics, including politics, economics, philosophy, morality and more. Some of the works are brief asides relevant to a specific idea advanced at the time I wrote the response, others are lengthy, in-depth reviews of larger issues; there are, of course, works that are in the middling range in size, that address something relevant to the time in a specific example, while addressing a larger principle. I've placed the works in chronological order, but have included a Table of Contents with categories and links to make it easier to find specific topics of interest.

The links provided with bring you to different websites where updates on my work can be seen.

Blog: <http://gdx1776.blogspot.com/>  
Facebook: <http://www.facebook.com/GregoryCoffinauthor>  
Twitter: @GDX1776
Table of Contents

Politics & Economics

On Justice... In Politics

Spending out of debt

Paying a Fair Share

On Markets and Money

On Regulations

The Biggest Problem in Politics

The Boom and the Bust

On Prices... and the 'Battlefield' of the Marketplace

'The Land of Opportunity'

What Would YOU do if You Saw Someone Sick, or...

Cult of (Presidential) Personality

Actually Paying the National Debt

2012(1984), Amerisoc and Barak 'O'Brien'

Taking My Lemon to the Mechanic

A Businessman Versus a Politician, and You

Science & Religion

Metaphysics (a Sonnet in The Gospel of Reason)

'If you don't believe God exists, how could you be mad at Him?'

Belief in God is the Ultimate Moral Relativism [A Brief Review]

Why Proving/Disproving God is Impossible

Proof of the New Highest God

Fundamentalists are NOT Crazy; They are far Worse

Scientific Proof of God - A Brief Review

Gun Control, Foreign Policy & the Use of Force

On Foreign Perspective...

Perspective on an Advanced Idea: Foreign Policy and Blowback

On Gun Control

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" Right?

Foreign Policy Ignorance & Hypocrisy

On Moral Equivalency

Allowing Our Amendments to be Picked Apart Piecemeal

Other Philosophical Observations

On Making Assumptions

On Making a Point with Incendiary Language: a New Modest Proposal

The Lion that Allowed Itself to be Devoured by a Rat

The Fallacy of the Capitalist Dragon

Crisis - Making the Exception the Rule

Government is NOT the Problem - do Not Mistake the Effect for the Cause

The Bane of Our Existence

Governing and Government

How the Government can ensure 'Fairness'

A Fable: Avalanche

Capitalism Versus...

Quick Asides

The Lack of a Stasis Point...

On the Political Parties...

A Quick Lesson for Obama

O'Reilly (Among Others) Misses the Point

A Thought on Bachmann

Disingenuous Comparisons

Barak Obama's 'Faith'

Advice to Gary Johnson

On Being 'Sensitive'

###

### 

###  On Justice... in Politics

[Originally posted 03/23/2010]

Justice: the quality of being just, moral rightness, the administering of deserved punishment or reward.1

When the concept of Justice was first compartmentalized is irrelevant. What is of relevance is the ubiquitous nature of Justice being compartmentalized, especially in contemporary politics. Political ideas such as Economic, Social, Racial and Eco Justice are bandied about, with proponents of each seeking the harmonization within the given field. The idea which must be examined is whether Justice is whole, or, regardless of subdivision, Justice is piecemeal; the ideas are mutually exclusive.

Could Justice be piecemeal? What would that look like?—it would look like the various proffered subgroups of Justice. Economic Justice, or Social, or Racial, or Eco would be first and foremost, wholly contained systems. As wholly contained systems, they are from the outset separate, and therefore subject to interaction amongst, even against each other. But, before they can interact, what must be asked is: compartmentalized Justice is _what_ , and for _whom_ within, and among, those subgroups? The very nature of dividing Justice into subgroups is to have subgroups within those subgroups, e.g. whites, blacks, _et al_ within Racial Justice, or 'haves' and the 'have-nots' in Economic or Social Justice. What do such groupings mean?—that collectives are of prime importance The very notion of such groups removes individuality, and replaces it with guilt or innocence by association; it makes victims or victimizers based on implied group affiliation.

The idea of Justice as a whole emphasizes individual responsibility. Individual responsibility emphasizes how one acts. That one could belong to a group by itself is not what is important; what is important is that in order to belong to a group, or not in any group, one must _act_ in a specific way. For Justice, that which does not relate to acts is superfluous; superficiality has no place in Justice for superficiality has no place in moral rightness or proper administration of punishment or reward. Superficiality does have its place in group mentalities. Is one white?—black?—rich?—poor?—and so on. Each of those groupings doesn't require a certain set of behaviors. They don't require one to act a certain way, but just to possess a given characteristic. However, what one does is the key component in Justice.

Justice is a multifaceted principle. Context rules Justice, as do principles; they are not mutually exclusive. Justice is absolute, but our attempt to embrace Justice includes finite ways to try and reach it. Sometimes it is easier, sometimes, not so much; sometimes context is filled in, such as evidence supporting a decision, while other times the evidence is lacking, or contradictory. Our application of Justice may be fallible, but with reasonable doubt, we can approximate quite closely and when possible, amend.

With Justice, the moral balancing being an attempted goal, there will be those who are not reaching that goal, either in their attempt to reach or erroneously having a falseness ascribed to them. With a focus on individualism, Justice can be looked at on a case-by-case basis and can be re-visited to be amended. Some may still be missed. As regrettable as that may be, what is the alternate? With compartmentalization, the moral balance is based not on individuals, a case-by-case basis, but on the implied, or ascribed, group. Based on one's membership in a given group and its relation to another group, all members within both sides have compartmentalized Justice placed on them; individuals have rewards or punishments foisted upon them based on superficial characteristics which they possess linking them to a 'class.' Regardless of individual actions, it is the perception of the given group's interaction with another group, which will be the base of compartmentalized Justice.

At the individual level, one's effort is not a guarantee of success. One may work quite hard to come to little reward; push as hard as one might, on a door which says 'Pull' one is wasting their efforts. This is proper; it _is_ Just. Anyone working hard does not offer enough to get more than their work; hard work alone is not what is important, _right_ work is what is important. Hard work with smart work is right work. There may be thousands who can move rocks to where they are told, but only a few can do the appropriate designing, planning, implementation and all else to change a mass of rocks into a building. All may work hard, but the type of work, its importance relative to its scarcity is what gets the just level of reward. If all were rewarded equally, then the masses would be given more than their due, and the few would be short-changed on what they offered. Further, society's relation to the individuals would be strained in that society would have to pay much more to the same people for the same work, and it would lose quality of work for if the extra work which goes into the designing, planning and all else is rewarded the same as those who simply hauled the material, then people would not put that level of effort into it. Either way, based on groupings, individuals would have incentive removed to do better than the rest (lost quality) while those who don't work as hard as the rest would still gain the same (lost resources).

Compartmentalization is the result of trying to 'level the playing field,' based on given groupings. What does that mean?—that certain groups have been wronged, and therefore another group wronged them – that a given number of individuals based on a similar characteristic, by that characteristic, have been wronged by others who share a similar characteristic different from the first group, among themselves: any color group, gender or social class could be included. What follows is that in order to achieve 'harmony,' or leveling the playing field, based on the given compartmentalization, that one group needs to have value removed from it to give it to the group which was wronged. Examples abound and are given as axiomatic, such as in Racial or Social Justice blacks have been wronged by whites, or in Gender Justice, women have been wronged by men; the wronged group is to be compensated by the 'guilty' group. The nature of groups and society is that one will be larger than the other. With that, many groups can call themselves aggrieved against the majority.

With compartmentalized Justice, the majority of those in the various groups (for statistically speaking, the 'norm' doesn't actually exist) are either receiving more than they should, or are losing more than they should. Regardless of which area the 'correction' may be made, it is by nature a forced imbalance. How is it just to take from one who didn't act wrongly, along with other individuals classified as belonging to a group based on superficial characteristics ascribed by a third party? Classification is a valid concept for description, but compartmentalization advocates do not use classification for description, but for proscription. With proscription as the goal, classes are made for one purpose, active division, and the purpose for active division is to create classes which are 'owed.' As there are infinite ways to group people, there is always some way to create a victim and a victimizer; there is always a way to point the finger at a faceless group, which is demonized, as the cause of misfortune.2

Is this to say that group concepts of Justice are always invalid?—no. Group Justice is a valid idea on two conditions: 1) that Justice, as a _moral_ administering of punishment and reward, would entail that proper groupings would be based on moral relations, not superficial characteristics, i.e. on behaviors, not traits: 2) as aforementioned, that norms do not exist in actuality, and are attempts to aggregate individuals to more or less, get a statistical approximation, i.e. individuals within any group on either side, based on their own actions, have more or less guilt or innocence for the given thing around that norm. From history's annals, there are countless examples, concretes which can be given. One of the most egregious examples would be the persecution of the Jews during the holocaust. It was not simply Germans persecuting Jews, as that itself is a nationality against a non-nationality (border-bound against that which isn't border bound: Jews as a blood-tied group are not border-bound). A better comparison is Nazi persecution of the Jews, which is one being a belief system (Nazism) against the superficial relation of ancestral blood-bound ties (one can convert to Judaism, and blood-born Jews may practice the faith to varying degrees, to not at all, or even against the faith that is generally believed that they embrace). Further, as the Nazis didn't possess power in a vacuum, and did not conquer their own country, the country which they did ascend to power in voted for them and as a member of a group which as a whole, had the majority act in accordance with the group's will, there is the proper group culpability. As a group, there are those who have differing levels of culpability, those who petitioned for the party, to active party members, to those who _voted_ for them, to those who didn't vote for them but remained in the Nazi rule – if one lives under a government system, then as being under its umbrella, not fighting its coverage or speaking against its wrongs, one is still tied to that system as a subject, albeit on the lowest level, but tied to that system nonetheless.

To briefly continue the aforementioned group mentality on Justice, let us simply change who is doing what to whom. Does it matter if it is the Nazis against the Jews?—Americans against the Arabs?—Arabs against the West?—blacks and whites?—women in somewhere as victim or victimizer?—the haves and the have-nots? What if the actions are not about genocide but sentencing for criminal offences?—characterization in entertainment?—to receive government benefits – such as healthcare? Will any of those changes make a difference to the application of Justice from an individual to an individual?—no.

A look at Environmental Justice and Species Justice will now be made: the ideas that either the environment is being treated unjustly, or that animals are being treated unjustly. Both of those ideas are invalid, for Justice being a moral harmonization has to do with choices from one volitional being to another volitional being and the environment and animals are not volitional. This is not to say there is not a proper way to interact with either one, but the proper way of interaction with the environment has to do with prudence, efficiency and morality. It will be said to differentiate treating things with morality, while not justly, is oxymoronic; that is not the case. Acting morally is acting as a member of our species properly, which is not wastefully: we may use items in the environment and animals for certain tasks, but those are for goals which assist us individually or as a species (mining, farming, research, ranching). When using animals or the environment arbitrarily, it becomes a question of theft (immoral usage of another's property) or waste – which have to do with prudence and efficiency, not Justice. Justice and morality is another, and valid, discussion overall; the focus here is Justice in politics.

Justice is _post-hoc_ ; as a reward or punishment, it necessarily follows an act. This is not to say that only a like act is to follow an initial act. The likeness, and depth or severity of an act may be a good guide, but it is not the only way to proceed with acting justly. As a _caveat_ , this does apply to punishment only, not to rewards. Rewards are to be earned by completed action, but where punishment can be given without the actual act is by the threat of force. From the threat of force, one may initiate an escalation; the threat itself _is an act_ , and because it hasn't been fulfilled, doesn't mean one needs to allow oneself victimhood before responding. Like all aspects of Justice, it is contextual with respect to the type of action proper to the principle of defense: an incapacitated drunkard mumbling on the violence he is going to inflict may be somewhat of a threat, but not at the same level of someone quite sober, stating that they are going to kill you and are raising their weapon. The threat is an act, justly countered. A dead man will not get Justice; those who survive might try for him.

What is all this based on?—whether it is a just nation, a just society or a just individual, the base is the concept of a perfectly just level – that where its appropriate level follows the concept of Justice, which is of proper moral actions. Moral actions are chosen. Therefore, whatever level, Justice includes that where people, societies or nations act rightly and are rewarded, or punished for acting wrongly, accordingly to those acts (only individuals act, but individuals in groups as aforementioned share their relative relationship to the act of the leaders of their group). Overall, Justice is first-and-foremost adherence to the law of identity (deeper examination is for another paper); that things are what they are and are appraised and judged and acted upon as such; most importantly man _qua_ man on principle, and that includes from the beginning life and liberty for each man. A just nation is composed of just societies, which are composed of just individuals; like any structure, how pretty the image may be on the façade (nation), if the base (individuals) is corrupted, the whole structure will fall, including the façade which cannot be supported by falseness any longer. A truly just society is only made of just individuals; it cannot work in reverse; individuals cannot be made just, but must act justly. We are a collection of individuals, but are affected as individuals in our own lives.

What is the goal of those who advance compartmentalized Justice?—those who use compartmentalization do so for the pragmatic end of getting an 'aggrieved' group what they 'deserve' by taking what was owed from a less sympathetic group; by that act, they solidify themselves and their position either in the community or in politics for their own gain. They set up systems (institutions) of unjust removal of value, i.e. theft. Based on a created system designed for the taking from one group, to give to another, the system is self-perpetuating, for the types and numbers of groups will always be many, and as the taking of value from one group for another is unjust, there will always be the imbalance and always another reason to keep various individuals grouped against one another. This redistribution will never end for the system ensures the cycle. By its nature, it removes the right to property.3 That is, until there is nothing left in the system to redistribute. _Ceteris paribus_ is a myth. By active division, class/group warfare will never cease, be it any group which classifies itself by proscriptions, whether it is any racial or gender group, political affiliation (Democrat or Republican), or even countries e.g. any against America, or types of countries, e.g. third world against Superpowers, against each other. The goal is by those who seek power to force their system of morality through an amoral agent: the government, which is legal force.

Moral acts cannot be forced. Morality, Justice is achieved by volition. When force is initiated, it is no longer a moral act but an act of enslavement... where Justice cannot exist. Where enslavement exists, as a natural violation of Justice, the just act is to act against the enslavement. As a violation of rights is an immoral act, if the victim cannot get Justice themselves, a proxy may act for them; that is not an obligation, but it is a right; it is not obligatory to take up a given concrete in defense of a principle. When action is obligatory is when it affects you, either by action against you, or being carried in your name. Proxy Justice to punish violators of rights is moral as Justice is a principle, the violation of Justice sets a principle; both principles cannot exist together – they are mutually exclusive.

Only Capitalism embraces non-compartmentalized Justice, for all other systems compartmentalize in their attempts to seek their version of Justice.4 Lady Justice is not treated as the independent arbiter with her blindfold for proper Justice, but instead is saddled and strapped-up as a horse, complete with blinders so She can only look in the direction desired for the given compartmentalization. To keep Her from bucking them off, they set up their cyclical system, making Her circle, focusing on that what is irrelevant to that which is irrelevant, which is always changing, so they never stop driving Her where they want. Let us help Her raise her sword and cut those binds so she can be proper once again.

When another tries to level the playing field, the game is destroyed.

1. Summarized definition from multiple dictionaries.  
2. Among the ways to compartmentalize, and based on said axiomatic examples include in history, slavery and patriarchy, or current events in other areas, such as the same ideas in other areas. Either way, it references harms done to others, not to oneself. If done to oneself, then that individual has a grievance for what was specifically done to them.  
3. Justly acquired property, for there is no right to another's property.  
4. Capitalism, with an unfortunately needed redundancy of _Laissez-faire_ , for any perversion of Capitalism, is not Capitalism but the beginning of compartmentalization; the form of compartmentalization is irrelevant, whether the division is among groups of individuals, corporations, states or nations.

Posted by GDX at 12:02 AM

### The lack of a Stasis point...

[Originally posted 03/25/2010]

A bane in the political process has been, and continues to be the lack of a stasis point. From the abortion debate's lack of stasis with one side claiming to be 'pro-life' while the other side claims to be 'pro-choice,' the argument can never be resolved; the opposing side will not take up the banner of being anti-life or anti-choice. In much the same way, with health care and one is either for it, or has a problem with sick people; one is for immigration, or is racist; one is for social justice or hates poor people; is for eco justice or hates the planet, and so on. The terms are not clearly defined on both sides, so it is impossible to actually have a stasis point - it is impossible to argue terms without definitions. The very nature of this lacking a stasis point sets up a false dichotomy, based on vague implications. What makes it all the more unfortunate today, is the scale of what is going on, and that those in power have learned to use the lack of a stasis point for manipulative purposes.

Posted by GDX at 11:53 PM

### On the Political Parties...

[Originally posted 04/10/2010]

The system won't allow it, but that doesn't mean it cannot be changed. The question that remains is what is needed to change what we have.

The bicameral system we have in place was not as originally intended. It sets up a false dichotomy when combined with mankind's institutionalization in conceptualizing - based on general characteristics, creating points of reference from which to make choices based on those perceived institutionalized characteristics; i.e. is one a Republican (R) or Democrat (D). The details of a given issue will be ignored, with the given affiliation to be a representative of the implied position. This false dichotomy is wrong on multiple fronts: with the institutionalization, the R or D come to represent constellations of whole categories of belief, but individuals are in those parties, and those individuals may have ideas which are 'crossing the aisle' and not representative of the perceived R or D; the nature of those serving in government who want to 'fix' things, is a power-hunger who wants to use the legal force of the government to make, or 'guide,' society to behavior that this one in a position of authority thinks they should live; when the two parties are both filled with those who want to fix society, then the choice to people is to which degree control should be placed upon them - a question of degree; however, still has the principle set that government should dictate over the people for their own good.

The system we have was not wanted originally. Two parties set up the false dichotomy. There should be no parties, or many parties for the more parties there would be, the more chances there would exist to follow what those who wrote the constitution intended: a check and balance among the parties from them sniping each other, with the necessary increased complexity of adding extra components \- more parties.

Posted by GDX at 8:15 AM

### A Quick Lesson for Obama

[Originally posted 06/27/2010]

"A strong and durable recovery also requires countries not having an undue advantage..." Obama

Let us humor ourselves that at this one given moment, that every individual, or for Obama's idea, every nation has attained equality. In this humorous example, equality is with respect to material wealth. Now, with all having the same amount... what now? There is no government policy which can make the Earth move resources to all areas equally; there is no governmental policy which ensures Nature treats each the same; there is no governmental policy which can make those who act foolishly to perform at the level of those who act with ingenuity. What the government can do is stifle those with ingenuity to act at a level of fools. This is for individuals or nations. From this humorous example where 'equality' was actually attained, we can see that the only way to ensure it is maintained is by making sure those who can excel, do not and we all remain at the level of our lowest.

Obama, you are way out of your element from what your position was created.

Posted by GDX at 5:36 PM

### Spending Out of Debt

[Originally posted 08/30/2010]

"You can't spend your way out of debt" is a popular saying nowadays. It is true and untrue. Being too much of a blanket statement, it must be broken down. There are two ways to go into debt: the one bandied about most by politicians, and the easier one, is by consumption; the other which is by production, which is more difficult.

Consumption to get out of debt is the idiotic notion where spending more on that which doesn't give a monetary return is supposedly going to help us get out of debt; e.g. 'cash for clunkers.' But, what is that exactly?-it is through government 'stimulus' - taking money from the taxpayers to give it to a targeted group - to get that group to spend their own money by purchasing a more expensive car. The old car which may have worked is to be replaced by a more expensive car, supposedly more efficient. But, one would have to go into debt to pay for said car, and pay higher insurance. If it was a new car, it depreciates a significant percentage just by the signing of the title. It is already losing value. The car which did work was removed from the pool of used cars, and to be destroyed. That is taking a value and destroying that value, and not only destroying value, but leaving waste. On top of all that, with the removal of all those used cars, the existing used cars have a smaller pool to select from, which will drive up their cost to purchase for one who cannot afford a new car. So, it is taking money from all, to give to a group, who doesn't create anything from it other than more debt.

Ever think about that it is the government's way of production in that it can 'produce' what it wants by getting its 'consumers' to pay more in taxes?

Now, to production. This is where one can spend their way out of debt. Production is to a something which will bring back a return - able to continuously bring forth a value. Most businesses do not have the finances to pay for all the overhead when beginning a business, but through loans (debt to create their business); they create a system of production from which that debt will eventually pay for itself, and more, by that value creation.

Businesses are not guaranteed success, so they have to pay more attention to trends, technology and all other factors of business for if there is another place where consumers can go to spend. Government is guaranteed success for regardless of how poorly they perform, it still remains and generally with those fools who have brought about disastrous results from their policies.

So, can one spend their way out of debt? – we need to look at the plan.

Posted by GDX at 11:51 AM

### Paying a Fair Share

[Originally posted 07/11/2011]

Definition of being fair (summarized): of pleasing appearance; in accordance of merit; consistent with logic/ethics.

'The rich need to pay their fair share' has been a saying for decades, so that many politicians and their constituents today repeat it is nothing new. But, let's look at what is fair.

The definition of 'pleasing appearance,' by its definition is that which pleases the senses; that is subjective. Pleasing appearance is based on appetite, and varies as much as how a pleasing meal looks when contrasted between a steak-lover and a vegetarian. This definition cannot be objectively fair.

That which is 'in accordance of merit' is based on a value system. The questions that follow are what, and whose values? The question that follows the former is whether those values are objective or subjective. This definition is not sufficient to be objectively fair.

The last part of 'being consistent with logic/ethics' implies an objective standard. Logic and ethics are not ambiguous; they are objective. This is where fairness can be examined.

To return to the calls of the rich needing to pay their fair share, that call is made to justify higher (existing and proposed) taxes on those who are considered rich. We first need a line of demarcation: at what amount of wealth is one considered wealthy? Though those labeled as 'millionaires' are the figureheads, those (households) who make $250k+ a year make that demarcation line (some say only $200k+) to be considered rich.

A look at the progressive tax system shows that the lower incomes pay as little as 10%, while the upper incomes may pay 35%+ of their incomes to the federal government. With all the deductions available, however, the amount of those who actually pay federal income tax changes drastically. In 2006, the number was around 41% of the population who didn't pay any federal income tax; recently, that number has increased to around 50% of the population. With lower estimates, after deductions the average taxpayer pays 18%, while the average rich taxpayer pays 27%; higher estimates show those who earn more may pay more than 60% of their income. As for the highest wage-earners of the top 1%, some liberal estimates show they pay 25%, while conservative estimates show they pay 40% of federal income tax. Either 25% or 40%, from only 1% of all wage-earners... how is that fair?

Now, without a detailed examination of how that tax revenue is spent (a whole other article), let us look at how 'fair' the tax system is for the people who pay into it. This won't be based off a pleasing appearance, for that is appetitive; this won't be based on an accordance of merit, for that alone doesn't describe the system the merit is to be based upon; it will be based on consistency with logic and ethics.

Logically and ethically, when one has a value and they trade away that value it is because of the nature of a trade that the traders receive something in return. With the progressive tax system, it is not a trade on either side: those who pay more have paid more into a system they do not receive as much from, and those who receive more paid less (if any) into a system they receive more from. If one has a value and they want to give it away, it is charity and charitable giving is a value to the giver; if one has a value taken away without permission, it is theft. A corollary of that is as a value to be exchanges amongst traders, the values are wanted. Just because a value was taken from a vegetarian, he will not be receiving something of value if he is given a steak in return.

Regardless of the level of income, there are things that each individual wants and needs as part of living as a man, and in a commonwealth; among these are food, housing, liberty among numerous other things. Some are goods; some are rights. A good is created by someone; a right is inherent in the life of man. In assessing these goods and rights, we can see where the line of demarcation may exist between positive and negative laws.

A positive law is where the State is to give, or guarantee something; a negative law is where the State is restricted from acting against an individual who is acting on his own behalf. Positive laws seek to give goods; negative laws protect individual rights. One cannot make a good a right, for to make a good a right is to mandate that it has to be made, and that is made by someone who loses his right to choose how to live his own life.

There is the crux: positive and negative laws cannot coexist, so one must be chosen.

To bring this back to a 'fair share' we can see that in order for one who cannot afford to receive a good, another who has the resources has those resources taken away by legal force. The system created to ensure the redistribution is the current tax system. Those who the system is designed to help may not pay any income taxes; those who do not receive any benefit from the system of redistribution pay a higher percentage of their income. How is that 'fair?' Even with a positive law in place, fairness (only in terms of paying for it, not in an actual goal of fairness - again, taxes on their own is another article) could be met by making sure everyone paid an equal percentage of their income, with no deductions (deductions only go to the selected/eligible and are not fair for all). The rich would still pay more in amounts, but not in percentage: that is how percentages work. If there was only a 10% tax (wishful thinking), it would take 1,000 men who earned $20,000 a year to equal one who earned $20,000,000 - a thousand to one. Now, add to that figure the current system and it becomes nonsensical for the 1,000 are no longer paying anything, while the rich one actually pays more - multiplying by 0 cannot be done.

To return to our rich line demarcation, those who receive the most while paying the least may make less that $50,000 a year. There is $150k-$200k left before one is considered rich; these people still pay and don't receive as much, though not to the level of those beyond the rich line. Shall we again look at what is fair?

Returning to positive and negative laws, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties on what the State cannot do to an individual. Imagine how much each individual would still have if the State wasn't perpetrating injustice by violating its highest law, and violating it in a most egregious way by taxing productivity.

This faulty system hasn't changed for the better, yet. But that doesn't mean it can't be changed. "The Delusion of the day is to enrich all classes at the expense of each other; it is to generate plunder under the pretense of organizing it." -Frederic Bastiat

Posted by GDX at 6:53 PM

### On Markets and Money

[Originally posted 07/18/2011]

The American economy is based upon the 'market.' Following that, what must be asked is 'what is the market?' The market (or marketplace) is where ideas (abstractions) or goods/products (concretes) are brought forth to be offered to the public, or to those interested.

Now, that is in itself abstract so let us examine how the market came to be – examine its nature. Being where ideas or goods are brought forth to be offered means a couple of different things: 1) someone has something to offer; 2) someone is interested in what another has to offer. For example, farmer Jed has harvested his corn and sees that he has more than he needs to survive until the next harvest, while rancher Sanders has raised extra chicken and has more than he needs to survive; both men have more than they need of a given good. As they have excess of what they need, they bring the excess to where they might be able trade their excess: where Sanders may want some corn and Jed may want some chicken. They discuss and with each desiring what the other has, come to an exchange of value _X_ amount of corn for _Y_ number of chickens. But, as the market is open to those interested, let us add farmer O'Malley who has excess potatoes and is interested in Sanders' chickens. Now, in the best of worlds, each would have enough to fulfill what each other wants: plenty of chickens for each. However, as this is the best world we have and it involves scarcity, there won't be enough chicken for each and for Sanders to maintain his productivity; he does himself, and those he deals with no good if he sets himself to go out of business. With only _Y_ number of chickens to trade, he has to decide what is more valuable: corn, potatoes, some of each or just keeping his stock. Jed and O'Malley will barter with Sanders as to what would be a good price to get the chickens.

Sanders has a monopoly only for there not being another who offers chicken or any other meat product, while the others offer vegetables (not a scientific term); Sanders, being the only one who offered meat could dictate price since there isn't another chicken rancher, while Jed and O'Malley offer a more interchangeable good. But, if Roy came along and he offered beef, Sanders wouldn't be able to dictate price like he used to because, like Jed and O'Malley having to compete against each other, Sanders would have to compete against Roy for the meat market.

Each party, in order to stay in business, would have to maintain their product. Not only would they have to maintain it, they'd have to improve upon it for in the market, there are numerous other Jeds, O'Malleys, Sanders and Roys, each offering a good that may be the same, or similar. In order to compete and maintain a profitable business, whoever entered the market would have to find ways of getting and keeping customers, and that is done primarily by lowering cost, and by improving quality. The market is where economics rule: incentives blended with scarcity.

To move bushels of produce, or dozens to thousands of animals is logistically problematic so the barter system is to be replaced. Something of value as agreed upon becomes a substitute so trade may be easier: money is created. Money is a standard, tied to an objective value that is agreed upon by the parties, for they choose to accept money as payment when they could still accept forms of barter instead. Money is to be representative of a portion of what could be used to trade for any produce. Traditionally, and for millennia, that objective value was gold; metals are enduring, and precious metals, like gold remain pure. With an objective value, what comes is that _Z_ amount of gold could buy _X_ vegetables, or _Y_ meat. Produce comes and goes, but the gold endures. Various people are able to do business, so that vegetarians may still sell produce to a rancher who may not have goods to barter.

Returning to our mini-market, production may be stabilized and predicted to an extent, but it is never guaranteed; various forces may affect production: drought, sickness (plant or animal), excess along with changing appetite in the market. If there was a fungus that wiped out 50% of the corn, while at the same time there was a boom on chicken production while demand remained the same changes in price would be needed. With less corn the price would have to be raised for Jed would have to make more from each amount of corn in order to cover loses and to maintain production, while the price of chicken would have to go down for there would be too much to go around and keeping all that stock would cost Sanders to maintain so he would want to unload more and to tempt customers to buy more than they originally would.

However, if the production remained the same, but the demand changed to only 50% of the corn was demanded while twice as much chicken was demanded, the prices would have to be changed again. Jed would have to lower his price in order to sell what he could to try and break-even at least, or to minimize losses, while Sanders would increase his prices to maximize profit while involving the most customers who themselves would compete by bidding up to satisfy their incentive in getting the chicken they desired so much; Sanders' suppliers (feed, fencing, etc) also would raise their prices. That would ensure other suppliers would compete for those scarce resources. This continues from the fence-maker requires an increased demand from the metal forger, who requires an increase from the miners, who require an increase in the tool-makers and labor market – that also affects each other level. Like everyone else, each is looking to satisfy his incentive to make a profit to better his life, improve his product, and create a cushion in case of lean times and at least maintaining a level of production. With the customers who are buying at the higher prices, a single customer is not able to purchase all of the stock, so that more customers are able to purchase some of the stock. From the increase demand and cost, other producers from around will have an incentive to spend the money to bring their goods over so they can also partake in the business; more goods are brought to be sold.

In very short-form, that is the market for products. However, it would be folly to assume a static nature for things change: technology, appetite, populations and more, continually change. Some change more quickly than others, but they all change. With those changes in society, the market will be affected.

As an example of change, let's say that Jed has been a steady supplier of corn and his customers are happy. However, one day a new farmer of corn, Del, comes to the market. Del offers corn, but because of how he can produce it, he has more to offer so he can offer it at a lower price. Intrigued by the savings, Jed's customers try Del's corn and find not only is it less expensive, but it tastes better as well. Regardless of how long Jed may have had his customers, he is now in danger of losing them as his customers pursue their incentives (self-interest) and get the most for their dollars, enabling them to purchase more of another good, or save. Jed has two choices: adapt or perish (in business). Even if Jed cannot adapt, Del's position of on top of the corn market is not static for the forces of the market dictate, in time, Del may be replaced as well.

Now, to see how the market cannot work (be self-adjusting) lets introduce artifice into the market: i.e. governmental regulation. If to ensure 'fairness,' because those who did buy the chicken at the lower price no longer could buy as much as they had before, those consumers went to the government (lets say, Sam) to regulate the prices: someone outside supply or demand dictating prices. When the demand for Sanders' chicken skyrockets and the market says he has to raise prices, but the market price was ignored and Sanders was force to sell his chickens at a below-market price demanded by Sam, then fewer people would buy more and take up the resources quickly; it would, in essence, a state-mandated percentage-off sale, where Sanders takes the loss. Sanders wouldn't be able to make a profit for his suppliers charges would still go up from increased demand. If there was to be a price control on all aspects of production (Sanders, and all those he deals with in feed, fencing, etc) then the market would dry up for each of them, like the consumers, seeks to satisfy their incentive, and with less incentive the cost of production goes up. People work more at that which is profitable for it increases the quality of life and offers building a cushion during lean times; if the work isn't profitable and potential profit is not seen, then there won't be the same incentive to work, meaning less work going into the chicken market, meaning less chickens available. Distant producers will not bring their product. State-mandated percentage-off sales end up being going-out-of-business sales. Mandated labor without profit is slavery.

That artifice was directly on the producer, out to the consumer. Next we will examine what happens when a regulation is imposed upon the market, but not on a producer directly.

Jed was the first corn farmer, and already had a business base. Through being a farmer, he employed (directly and indirectly) many people to help grow, harvest, ship, package and sell his corn. However, with Jed having a monopoly on corn (not all vegetables), Del decided to try and offer his corn and the customers found his corn was better. Jed no longer has a monopoly and needs to adapt; however, instead of adapting his business to what is in the market, Jed seeks Sam to restrict the access of Del (and all like him) to sell to the consumer base, or restrict the consumer base's ability to buy through such measures as licensing fees and new, selective taxes (e.g. tariffs and 'sin' taxes). Sam introduced artifice so the market isn't correcting itself. New supply and demand has been created, but Sam is denying their effect. A monopoly has been created. The monopoly that Jed had originally was because of no one else selling corn, but anyone could enter and compete for customers. The monopoly introduced by Sam is non-market, State-mandated monopoly, and others could not compete for Jed's customers. That means Jed could do what he wanted, charge what he wanted and let quality go for he wouldn't have the incentive to lower prices or improve his goods; his customers would get lesser quality and have to pay more for it.

Now we'll look at introducing artifice into the market through the money supply. Gold is heavy, so something else that represents varying amounts of gold is created, e.g. coins and bills. But those monies are tied to the gold for the gold is an objective value. If money is not tied to an objective value, and can be created arbitrarily through artifice in the money supply, then it is not tied to a value system, and is not attached to that which states something is worth anything else. It would be as worthless as taking anything, any scrap of worthlessness and stating it as value. It was agreed that _Z_ amount of gold was worth _X_ or _Y_ of another good. But, as hauling gold is difficult, notes are used instead of bulk gold to represent the varied amounts of gold. As the gold is finite, the value from it is finite. Here is where artifice is introduced: if without an increase in the base value (gold) more notes representing a piece of that value are created. If there was a system of value, but more money was added without adding to the value system backing it, then each unit of old and new money becomes worth less with each unit created: a pie can only be divvied up so much, but it cannot be duplicated (unless more of the backing value was gained, i.e. gold mined).

In the marketplace of ideas, there is similarity in that someone who advances an idea comes forth, as does another with a different idea. Those two debate and present their cases for their respective ideas and from who presents the better argument, or is more persuasive, the audience will listen to that speaker and accept their ideas. Knowledge is the key component in the market. This is true with ideas or goods, for the better idea presentation wins, just as the better corn farmer. There may be a temporary setback; there may be one whose sophistry convinces that rotten corn may be good, or that this specific idea is good, but with experience and the knowledge that comes from it the truth may be discovered and it can be conveyed so that corn will not be purchased, that idea will not be believed, and the better good and idea will prevail. Through people pursuing their incentives, the market as a whole will self-correct when artifice is not introduced.

Briefly, that is the market.

Posted by GDX at 2:52 PM

###  On Making Assumptions

[Originally posted 08/7/2011]

With any goal to be implemented, there needs to be a series of steps toward that goal. Those steps, and of course the goal itself, are each based on assumptions that form the foundation that the beliefs are created from, therefore how the actions are to be implemented.

For example, increasingly common in modern industrialized societies, and under a new banner of 'social justice' there is the goal of raising those with less to a higher level. The goal is equality, or, as the colloquialism goes: to spread the wealth around.

To spread the wealth around, what must first be decided is the line of demarcation from which to judge where one should receive; i.e. who is to receive. Is that level where one it to receive to be based upon net worth, income level, number of dependents, number that they may be dependent on, or something else?

Next, what needs to be decided is exactly what is to be equalized, or to be spread around. Is it money, an amount of goods, percentage of employment, representation in government or business leadership?

After finding out who is the one to be receiving something and receiving what, there is a flip-side to be considered: if a proper amount has been decided from which one should not be below, what exactly is too much? Who is considered to have 'too much of the pie' in the aforementioned areas?

But we come back to a deeper assumption in order to look at who should receive what: what are values? This is not asked a nuanced level of Smith or Anderson should receive a how much of a value from their mutual interaction, but before that. What must be looked at is whether or not a value something that belongs to individuals who can act in a collective or do values belong to collectives who can act upon the individual. So, the question may be rephrased: who should have values?

For the sake of argument, let's go with the social justice argument that some have received too much, while others have not received enough, and we also have our line of demarcation wherever that may be. In answering these questions, we have stated as a primary that values are social goods, for if they may be transferred to equalize a social system, any personal value is of a distant, secondary consequence to the social good that must be equalized. The 'haves' are to loose something so the 'have-nots' may gain that thing.

An example: we have decided that wealth should be taken from the haves, and given to have-nots. We must back up briefly. Who are the 'deciders'?—the deciders are the group who looked about, decided who should receive wealth, who should have wealth taken away, and how to take and give away wealth. The deciders classified who are the haves and the have-nots. If wealth was a personal value, then the haves could give it away as they saw fit. But with wealth being a social good, the deciders can take it away, by force if necessary for the collective good is better served if individual haves are forced to equalize the rest.

To put the decider's plan into action, as society is large, there would have to be various components of implementation: firstly, the deciders, then after that, the logistical side: collectors, sorters, distributors. These groupings would have to be repeatedly created for 'the public' is a formless mass. These would be decider-collectives and would be staffed by numerous individuals of a shared vision to implement their plan. Numerous collectives would be created for the decider's plan of redistribution.

We must also briefly look at the deciders and the collectives the deciders created to implement the redistribution. It is an assumption that things will proceed without a problem, but the very nature of said work is problematic. With the legal use of force being used to change the possession of value only the State can implement any actions. The nature of the position would make it implemented by those without competition, not elected, and not overseen by others than those in the system that takes wealth. The nature of the work includes being without competition, unelected and not overseen invites corruption. The assumption is that those working for the State are the faithful public servants working for the public good, and are beyond 'selfishness,' but this ignores that these people are still individuals who became public servants, and their motivation for society's greater good is an assumption placed upon them. The nature of the legal use of force as a tool to implement an agenda attracts those of a specific mindset who see wealth as a social good; there are those who also enter public service of protecting individual rights, but they are a minority. Without competition the deciders collective could perform poorly and remain inefficient, if not fully corrupt. And, with the model of inefficiency, the nature of their work would take away from the wealth so it could pay for the program itself, as well as assisting other State programs that need wealth. Even if not corrupt, the bureaucracy would siphon funds.

With the legal use of force behind what they decide, the deciders would be better entitled dictators; the decided and now dictate others what is to be done.

Two more assumptions that need to be considered: 1) that one who is not in the nuanced situation knows more about what needs to be done than those who are in it; 2) an assumption of Ceteris Paribus, that after a change has been implemented that those changes will not bring forth new changes.

These last two assumptions, however, are obviously false. We know principles, e.g. 2+2=4 and freezing cold and water will make ice; the specifics change for though the principle may be immutable, the specifics in a different place may change to a different principle, e.g. 2(rulers)+2(yardsticks)=8 feet of distance. Only those nearby are those who can verify which details are important to the formulation; the distant one who still continues 2+2=4 is right in the general principle, but wrong in the specific circumstance. A greater problem emerges when one takes his local principle and applies it to all, such as 2(rulers)+2(yardsticks)=8 feet of distance and stating it has to be used in an area that is based off the metric system.

New changes come about for though freezing cold and water will make ice, if one area introduces a red dye to make red ice, there won't be a significant change; if another area introduces alcohol, then there won't be ice, but a cold liquid.

One more thing about change, is that it is always constant. Of the infinite variables interacting in life, they are continuously interacting in the various ways that their principles (their identity) dictate: will the water freeze or not?—what are the components interacting in this situation?—the new principle to be considered?—is the change relevant enough to require a new principle to be considered? But, with society, there is the additional constant change to be included in that man ages, the population cycles and demographics fluctuate. Those who make up the bulk of a society and consume more, or produce more will change.

Even if one was foolish and arrogant enough to believe they had all the answers to the aforementioned questions and can remain up-to-date with all the changes, everywhere, all the time, there is one more assumption, and that is that aid/redistribution actually helps. Helps who, how and with what are generally unanswered in specifics for it is the general idea that is desired of helping one without, receive. Aside from the morality (a very important issue), let's look at the taking by force, one's wealth who earned it to be given to another who has not earned it: that wealth should be taken from the haves, and given to the have-nots. In principle it is rewarding behavior that has failed to meet the reward-level where receiving it was just; in principle it is punishing behavior that put forth the right work. On a pragmatic level, as aforementioned, the model of work includes being without competition, unelected and not overseen invites corruption, or at the least, inefficiency.

Now, some may come forth with the declaration of the specifics being of a bigger importance, like was mentioned with the 2+2=4 example: making the exception the rule – anecdotal evidence to justify a rule. That is nonsensical, for the exception by its nature showed there was an unknown variable affecting a thing, changing the principle to be applied. But to find out how that variable is affecting a thing, it would take an examination of the specific instance which would be local application of the general principle, fine-tuning it to get to its reality. The smallest unit who can best know how to act with what is theirs is an individual, which makes values personal goods.

A final assumption to be examined is that of perspective. Perspective may color how one sees what is valuable. Someone who is born into wealth may look at the man driving a 'junker' car on his way to a minimum wage job in order to pay for his family, may see someone who is without what he needs to survive; the same man driving a junker on the way to his minimum wage job would be looked upon with envy by the man in a third-world country who mines all week for what the minimum wage-earner makes in one hour, while his family, including his children also work in order to earn what their society can offer.

Assumptions are important for they form the unconscious base from which we act consciously. They are, however, damaging when faulty. Faulty assumptions affect our individual lives, and when one has more reach, their faults reach further. That red fruit is good is a general principle, but the locals who have cherries, and not butcher's broom, will get nourishment, while the others will get quite sick. Now, consider if the dictator commanded all red berries to be eaten. The universe is not affected by the ignorance those who act in it, but allows ignorant consequences, with their pain, come to those actors; the universe also rewards those who act rightly.

Posted by GDX at 12:51 AM

### O'Reilly (among others) misses the point

[Originally posted 08/09/2011]

O'Reilly recently was talking about freedom and political choice, with the right and freedom to be liberal, conservative, libertarian or a tea-party member. He made the same error that many others have made: confusing/blending political and philosophical ideas.

Tea-party members are more amorphous, while libertarian is a little more specific. But the dominant groups in modern politics are conservatives and liberals. How the difference can be seen, and the crucial nature of the difference between a philosophical belief and a political belief, though crucial, is simple.

A political belief/ideology being applied in politics and into law removes the freedom to choose. Whether it is a current liberal redistribution plan that increases a tax rate, or whether it is a conservative plan to define marriage, the effect is the same: the people losing the freedom to choose for themselves.

At philosophical levels, these ideas do not take away freedom, but are in fact expressions of freedom when people act upon them: the liberal may donate more if they choose, and the conservative may keep their marriage according to their dictates, while not infringing upon one who keeps their money to spend, invest or save it as they see fit, or for another couple to get married according to the dictates of their beliefs.

It is the crucial difference between a positive and a negative law: negative laws punish violations of rights; positive laws seek to guarantee things to be given/enforced that have nothing to do with defending rights, but at base to be implemented violate the rights of the citizens.

Posted by GDX at  10:39 PM

### A Thought on Bachmann

[Originally posted 08/15/2011]

Bachmann keeps giving reasons as to why she shouldn't be president, and they keep being added to, including and most importantly by her own words.

Byron York's question was on her 'submission' to her husband's admonition "now you need to go and get a post-doctorate degree in tax law." Her thought was "I hate taxes. Why should I go and do something like that?" (Quotes are her own words)

After a few seconds of empty booing from the crowd, Bachmann replied equating submission with respect and that husbands and wives are to respect one another. Very good, but that wasn't the question. Paraphrased, the question was: who makes your decisions?-you or your husband? She could have closed any question about this if she simply, decisively declared: I make my own decisions. Instead she waffled and answered a question not asked. The presidency is too important to have someone who isn't direct and self-directed.

Posted by GDX at 7:12 AM

###  On Making a Point with Incendiary Language: a New Modest Proposal

[Originally posted 09/04/2011]

(I am not a member of the Tea Party, but some of the attacks on them are ridiculous. This is for the Tea Party, against the likes of Andre Carson's 'blacks to be hanging from a tree', John Kerry and 'literally wanting to cut the baby in half', Maxine Waters wanting them to 'go to Hell', to generalized claims of hostage-taking, and being terrorists).

What is debt? Debt is the borrowing of wealth with the promise to pay the amount of borrowed wealth (principle) in addition to the interest for borrowing the wealth. The more debt, generally the more time it takes to pay it off; to pay for a car the term may be for a couple years, but for a house the term may be for a couple decades. The debt of the US was (supposedly) limited at 14.3 trillion, but has been increased.

How is debt paid off?—by work, and the more debt, the more work is needed to pay it off. Who pays the debt?—the ones who took out the loan. With individuals, the one issuing the loan gets payments from the one who borrowed with clearly defined payments and a limit based on the marketability of the borrower: one who can afford only a used car, won't be loaned funds for a new car (unless some things are manipulated to counter the marketability). But, when it is the government taking out the loans, it is an ever-expanding IOU without clear terms, especially with who exactly pays who. A borrower from a bank remains the same; the government changes with each election. What doesn't change is who ultimately pays the government's debt. It is paid by the tax payers (businesses and individuals).

The debt limit has been increased. It has continually been added to for decades and all administrations, but it has increased dramatically the past decade (two administrations). For generations the idea of stopping spending has been passed on to the next generation while the current generation continues to add to the debt. It can only be increased for so long; only adding a drop at a time will cause a 55 gallon barrel to overflow eventually.

Tax businesses more and they raise their prices, so individuals are the ones in the long-run who have to pay. With the cost of everyday goods rising, individuals have less purchasing power. To follow the increase of doing business, existing businesses won't expand and hire more while possibly laying-off some existing staff; new entrepreneurs have new regulations they have to meet, fees to pay, making starting another business unlikely. In these circumstances, it becomes more difficult to pay off the debt that has been accrued, let alone the extra added to the debt. There is less purchasing power, higher un-/under-employment, and less opportunity to earn or create wealth.

Now we come to the crux of the matter, and the point of this article.

With the weakening employment prospects along with the ever-expanding debt that has to be paid off, these modern-day politicians who keep wanting to raise the debt (and those who press the politicians to act as such), while making it more difficult for businesses to hire, are trying to rape your children. Rather, they are not directly trying to rape your children, but just set them up to be raped – to be pimped out as a sex-indentured servant/slave. Regular employment is less available, but 'the oldest profession' is still around and can be offered without any other resources than one's body. So, the government with the barrel of a gun is setting your children to be shot in a different manner. Yes, Uncle Sam, the labor union leadership, the congressional black caucus, as well as these entitlement-seeking groups want your child to get scraped knees, but from a different kind of 'play'.

Don't worry; the raping will not be done by other Americans for most won't be able to afford it. For the most part, the rapes will be done by other countries, especially China for as a foreign power they have the most US debt. With the majority of the rapes being done by foreigners, there won't be the added problem of your children being traumatized by seeing their violator repeatedly. However, there will be those of your children who will be raped by other Americans as the Federal Reserve has the most of the debt, but we might be able to get out of that for if they are actually a governmental body, then it is debt owed to ourselves and can be ignored, but if they are actually a non-governmental body... then they'll be invading the bodies of your children.

Just keep in mind that with each bill that gets passed, Obamacare, extended unemployment insurance, EPA regulations and such, those who are passing the bills, adding to the debt while making paying off that debt more difficult, want your children to be bent over that much more, spread their cheeks that much more. Ignore the cries of the children, for it will only hurt as long as debt is still owed. The debt limit was just increased to over 16 trillion; how long would that take to pay off?

Now, was the real issue of debt seriously considered with the hyperbolic offering?—the point may be made, while being overshadowed by the example.

Wait, I forgot about two other issues affecting the attempted rapes: UNFUNDED liabilities and the manipulation of the money supply. With the those two factors, it is going to take longer to get out of the great debt our 'leaders' have gotten us; tell your kids to prepare their kids, and their kids, and so on.

Posted by GDX at  5:26 PM

### Disingenuous Comparisons

[Originally posted 09/06/2011]

As a follow-up to the incendiary language issue, there comes the issue that Bob Beckel displayed, and that is 'name-calling.'

Hoffa Jr. made news recently with calling various Tea Party Republicans 'son-of-a-bitches.' Beckel equated Hoffa's name calling to whether one could call Obama a socialist, and when Bolling defended calling Obama a 'progressive socialist,' Beckel ranted about how wrong it was to use such a pejorative term (socialist).

This is a false comparison, for a socialist is a denotative term to reflect a set of beliefs and policies, while son-of-a-bitch is a connotative term that is impossible to reflect anything in a denotative manner outside of a canine, or genetic manipulation. Son-of-a-bitch is slang; socialist is not slang.

Where the disingenuous nature comes in is by comparing the two terms, it is an attempt to hide the beliefs and behaviors that denote the denotative term by linking it to the inflammatory connotation of the slang term.

Don't let those who try and make such a comparison get away with it. Defend your terms, and make them defend theirs.

Posted by GDX at  8:18 PM

### On Regulations

[Originally posted 09/08/2011]

Regulations are the requirements to do business, and there are always regulations. The question is: who creates the regulations?—the market or the State.

Market-created regulations, first and foremost, are voluntary. Not only are market-created regulations voluntary, but they are also amorphous. Being voluntary and amorphous, individuals (those involved in a transaction) may interact as they see fit. This applies to businesses as large multinational corporations, to kids selling lemonade on a front yard, and their customers; if you don't like how the product is processed, thinking it is unsanitary, such as using not cleanly processed lettuce in hundreds of restaurants, or a dirty lemonade pitcher, any individual may decide to not purchase the product. However, if those concerns are addressed (and quickly addressed from decreasing market share), patronage may return. If there wasn't enough to warrant a concern, patronage wouldn't have stopped.

State-created regulations, first and foremost, are involuntary. What is it to blend the involuntary when mixed with the authority of the State?—the removal of choice with legal punishment and all that entails. With State-created regulations, the individuals who actually want to do business with one another are of a secondary concern to what the State will first allow. Want to get a specific style of hair braid from the only beautician who knows how to do that style (Jestina Clayton*)? Without the proper State-sanctioned license for the beautician, it's not allowed. Want to buy that glass of lemonade?—the child didn't get the license to sell the lemonade, so they've been shut-down by the threat of a fine. Patronize the license-less beautician, and fines will follow.

Market-created regulations just mean there will be no transaction unless terms have been agreed upon; if terms have not been agreed upon, then from mutual agreement, there will be no transaction from disagreed upon acceptable terms. State-created regulations mean that permissions must be sought and approved by governmental bureaucracy. If those permissions haven't been given, to continue means instead of license fees for permission to act, there will be fines to be paid in punishment for acting without permission – refuse to pay the fines, and one goes to jail.

Let's expand upon the aforementioned on something like wages; they can be regulated by the market, or by the State. Market-regulated wages would be dependent on the context. The market is the King of context. If there is a high demand but there were too many workers, the wages would be lower, but more would be employed. While if the demand was still high but if there were too few workers, the wages would be higher and the best would be employed. If the demand was low, then the wages could be lowered to hire some to perform the less demanded work.

State-regulated wages requires a minimum wage to be offered, and sometimes a cap on what can be offered. If there was a high demand with many people, but with the higher wage dictated by the State, then there would be fewer employed for there is still only so much that the work justifies in wages, so the fewer employees would earn some more wages, but there will be higher overall unemployment. If there was a lower demand, then an employer would skip hiring altogether for the hiring wouldn't pay for itself, or be profitable. (Wages and prices will be another article).

Market-created regulations follow economics: an individual's incentive mixed with limited resources. A well-funded, established businessman may splurge for a luxury work vehicle to be part of his image, while one just starting may buy a used car, emphasizing practicality. Both may be able to _buy_ the expensive vehicle, but the recently-started businessman would decide funds would be better spent on other work expenses instead of just one car, especially primarily for image. More on context with incentives and limited resources: the family of six needs a different vehicle than a bachelor, and both have only so much to pay for a car while needing to also pay for other expenses relevant to their lives. To continue, a brooch may just be a trinket to one, but an heirloom with high subjective value to a family member. A can of SPAM may be repulsive and not worth a dime to one accustomed to caviar as they live in luxury, but that same one who stranded and starving may find the SPAM – their only source of nutrition – as worth hundreds of dollars at that time. At the same time, one who likes SPAM may not be interested in caviar at any dollar amount, until it is the only source of nutrition. Again, the market is the King of context.

State-created regulations are laws. Laws are mandates on what must be done, how, and punishments for not doing things according to law: proscriptions and prescriptions, blended. When laws are introduced into the market, aside from rights violations, such as requirements for licenses, subsidies, quotas or 'sin' taxes, it is artifice introduced into market. All the aforementioned false-market effects are created for a reason, to help some one, or sector. Help them do what?—get an advantage in some way: help them with something or prevent competition doing something. Before the artifice-laws were created, more were on equal footing with opportunity, but afterward, the established sets up assists (e.g. subsidies) for themselves, or barriers (e.g. licensing fees) for competitors. Through the force and manipulation of the State, regulations prop up that which isn't worthy, while putting at a disadvantage that which is otherwise worthy. An extension of this artifice is that what the market normally would deny because it wouldn't be practical or desired, gets a false foothold in the market, such as green energy, high-speed rail and ethanol. All of this artifice is done by 'investment' by the State with someone else's (the taxpayer) money being handed out – handed out by those not directly in the transaction of the buyer or seller. (Each of these have their own market effects).

State-created regulations allow true monopolies, prevent competition and last as long as the law remains, across the area the law affects. Market-created regulations do not prevent competition, and last only as long as there isn't a better option available in a given area. It is the difference between the post office and a grocer who may be replaced by a new grocer offering better product for better prices, if the first doesn't improve what they offer.

Lastly, we'll look at regulations dissuading innovation. Regulations that were designed, in part to 'protect' us, (also to protect the vested interest of those established in business and the State) stifle innovation. An example, if a bureaucrat decided what needed to be added in order to ensure 'safety' the Wright brothers never would have flown, but because they planned, worked and took their own risks, they, and with what they started enabled all of us to fly.

Posted by GDX at 8:30 AM

### On Foreign Perspective...

[Originally posted 09/14/2011]

Consider if you will, Mexico, having a problem with someone in the US (Sheriff Joe Arpio, notorious on immigration, for example), and to deal with their problem, the Mexican military began shooting rockets into Arizona, killing some US citizens while destroying US private property and infrastructure. On top of that, as the Mexican military continued to step up their attacks on trying to get Arpio, began building bases, enforcing their legal systems in suburbs of Phoenix. This would be a foreign country initiating attacks upon US soil, targeting a US citizen while taking over US land. Who'd be pissed at Mexico?

Now, let's add to the aforementioned, with the Mexican military's desire to get Arpio's network of like-minded sheriffs, began expanding their range of attacks and the number of bases, including taking over Mt. Rushmore, the Alamo, and the Washington and Lincoln monuments. Think more would be pissed at Mexico?

Switch it around, and that would be the US in various areas in the world. Some areas welcome our presence, but some do not: a foreign power coming into and taking over one's country (therefore their sovereignty), causing the loss of life and property.

We in the US have our first amendment, so how would we like a theocracy imposed whether it was by some Iranian mullahs who used force to impose Sharia law, or some Roman priests to impose laws based from the Old Testament? While trying to dismantle constitutional protection and Sharia was being preached from the Washington monument, or Old Testament rules were being preached from Mt. Rushmore and that from these foreign sources called for 'moving beyond' the existing cultural belief structures, again who'd be pissed?

Regardless of an objective value of a culture, using force to impose change increases fundamentalist resistance as that is the culture's assertion of its tradition, led by the most ardent of its adherents. Someone is going to be pissed, try and garner support and raise that support against the perceived threat based on how the cultural values are perceived.

Posted by GDX at 8:21 AM

### The Biggest Problem in Politics

[Originally posted 10/7/2011]

The biggest problems with legislators, is that they pass laws.

They're not the worst things in the world, but career politicians are a definite negative factor in society. What is a career?—a career is chosen path, profession or occupation. Being in a profession, one wants to be productive; what is it to be productive politician?-worse, what is it to be a productive legislator?

There are some areas of governmental work where one can make a career: military or law enforcement: police and judges. However, where governmental careers create problems are when they are in the executive or legislative branches. There will likely always some members of society that may decide rights violations are appropriate, so there will always be a need for police. Even moral people may come to disagreements on terms, so aside from criminal prosecution, judges are needed. To deal with criminal acts and civil disagreements, it can be daily work.

What do legislators do? What more do legislators need to add? Legislative laws are to reflect moral laws in application in society, i.e. not allowing, and prosecuting violations of individual rights. If that law protecting individual rights is set, what more can a legislator add? When the principle has been set, only the superfluous may be added. If someone murdered another, then they should be punished (after being judged guilty) for the act of murder; the principle of the right to life was violated, and that violation is to be punished. Adding the superfluous to that principle, e.g. a 'hate' crime to justify a more severe sentence, or for a lesser sentence, maybe someone was 'mentally impaired.'

With legislators getting into the situation, the principle is no longer enough. Context may have been given consideration in the process of a trial, where the jury of peers may weigh the validity of said context, but with legislators preempting the judicial system, what emerges a formula created by someone outside of the prosecution of the trial. It is also a justification of the legislator being able to legislate, giving the image that they should continue to legislate in society, and in more areas in society.

What happens when the legislator legislates in other areas?—further intrusion into the lives of those in society, denying them to take their own context into consideration, and be told what is acceptable by the distant legislator. A couple of examples include the minimum wage and rent control. If someone is short on money and needs some earn some supplemental income, but the potential employer that has work that is only worth a wage that is not as much the minimum wage, then his work remains incomplete and the one short on funds, remains short on those funds. With a ceiling on what can be charged on renting a room, then more can afford it, but there are consequences with that as well and not just the goal of more people getting a room like the legislator wanted. With the prices being held artificially down, then more can afford to rent, and rent on their own where they might have roomed with another, and more do not have a room at all. With the limit on what can be earned, there won't be the incentive to offer more rooms, so the supply will not increase, but the demand will have increased. With an increased demand, but same supply, concern of quality and upkeep will be less for it isn't worth the same investment, and if someone doesn't like it there will be another in line who will accept the lesser quality, cheaper room.

Legislators keep themselves busy; No Child Left Behind, Obamacare, drunk driving laws, subsidies, the HUD, and each of these programs/laws have consequences far beyond the hyped goal pontificated by the legislator.

But, people see the busy law-makers and applaud 'look at how productive they are.' They have been productive, and cumulative; that which previous law-makers create remain as laws until a following law-maker works specifically to overturn the earlier laws. The federal tax code has close to 80,000 pages – how all those legislators have kept busy. Each code is a restriction, barrier or at the very least, a 'hoop to jump through' in order for 'free' people to associate with each other in business and employment.

Politicians were not to exist in that sphere for a career – they were to be living their lives and coming to serve the public, to return to their lives. But with the push for production, a great trait for the private sector, legislators' production comes with new laws/codes/regulations that have with them the threat of a gun behind them. A body will die from a thousand cuts; a State will die from a thousand laws.

We need less productive legislators. We need less productive government, for a 'productive' government is one that is busy governing in our lives, meaning leaving our lives less free.

Posted by GDX at  10:50 PM

### The Boom and the Bust

[Originally posted 10/13/2011]

The boom and the bust of the market is like the ebb and flow of a stream.

Look at the flow of a stream as consumer demand. It is a constant in some degree, larger at some times, lesser at others; if it dries up, then all around it dies from no water. The mountains and valleys that form the tributaries, that are innovations, which contribute to the flow of the stream and are brought into consumer demand. These innovations, like the flow of water from the mountains out to the sea have their own birth, life and death as they form on their way to the stream, flow with the stream until the stream expels it out to the sea; e.g. the Model T being built, mass produced, and then phased out - replaced. There is one more part to consider, and that is the dam – the marketplace. The marketplace is where consumer demand builds, the various innovations are available for various consumers; it pools the innovations, yet also provides an outlet to expel that which is no longer desired in the market, such as the Model T being ousted from the marketplace when newer, better autos became available.

The marketplace, in conjunction with consumer demand and innovation regulates itself. When a new innovation is available, such as Ford replacing horse buggies, others seek to participate in the demand, and General Motors among other auto manufacturers add their own in their tributary to the stream of consumer demand. The level in the dam rises. Eventually, the dam rises too much, there is too much input and the release is increased flushing out the excess. The beginning is when prices are high with lesser supply but higher demand; the middle is where more supply is offered by those seeking to profit off the demand; the end is when there is more supply than demand and prices are at their lowest. There is no boom, no bust, just small fluctuations.

It's an efficient system, and takes care of itself with its cycles, its ebbs and flows. However, there are ways of messing up the system, and the biggest way is through governmental influence introducing artifice into the marketplace; it is by an outside influence altering the cycles, and that only can bring problems for the marketplace and all those who are in it.

For example, the government may influence it in two main ways: trying to stimulate production, more of what comes from the tributaries; controlling the consumption, that is regulating the release of the dam.

Through stimulating production, the State is giving that which isn't otherwise marketable a false place in the market, siphoning water from one route that produces more and routing it to a dead zone, such as re-routing a creek from an area of lush vegetation so that parched earth may get wet; the lush vegetation suffers, while the parched earth gets wet, and may eventually produce something, but not as much if the water went to grow that which was already growing. An example here is how much was lost across the planet for 'green' jobs. They may be marketable at some point, but now they're not: see Solyndra.

Through controlling consumption, the State is blocking the release of the dam and not letting the prices change to how the stream dictates. This release control is done in two ways: stopping the release, or forcing the release to be too much. Keeping the release open beyond what the marketplace desires keeps the price too high, and as its too high to stay in the marketplace, it quickly goes out and the marketplace doesn't built; consumers don't consume as much and this can be seen in minimum wage laws, licensing fees and other regulations that increase the cost of business but do not actually contribute to the process of business.

This brings us to the most damaging part, and that is when the release of the dam has been jammed shut, and the marketplace just builds. This is the bubble that will burst. Without a release, the marketplace gets flooded with goods with higher prices than what the market says it should be. It wants to expel the excess, but it can't because the State blocked the release. So, more builds in the marketplace, and it continues to build; the housing market is an example of this. The demand for houses was high, and the prices were rising so more got into the housing market. The more that enters the market, the more the prices should go down; the release should be triggered. However, with the blocking of the State, the marketplace couldn't get rid of the excess so it only grew. Things can only grow for so long; if the dam doesn't break altogether, it will overflow. That is the burst bubble. The market is correcting itself and trying to get the prices to where they should be. With the artificially high prices being what was invested in, those are the prices people agreed to, but after the correction began, and the real market value comes to the fore is when people lose their equity.

Those are the only things the state can do in the marketplace. Stimulate that which the market says isn't ready to be marketed in one of three ways, or worse and compounding, blending the three. If the marketplace was left alone, the basic fluctuations of supply and demand would take care of it self; with the interference of the State, bubbles are created and great amounts of wealth are lost.

Let's keep the government in its proper place: protecting individual rights. When it tries to get into the field of business outside of rights violations, it will only hamper the market.

Posted by GDX at 10:34 PM

### On Prices... and the 'Battlefield' of the Marketplace

[Originally posted 10/28/2011]

The marketplace is the field where people 'battle' to have their product stand above and compete with others' product. Prices reflect hotspots where flags are to be raised so resources can be relocated and bolster the specific good; the higher a price, the higher the flag is raised. With the flag going higher, more in the field can see that there is an area needing support – customers are spending/buying. Seeing an area that needs more support, those in the field may move their resources from their current location to where it is needed more – is more activity. Whether it is a new innovation in a type of phone, or a hurricane-ravaged area needing (re)building supplies, rising prices signal to the rest of the marketplace that help is needed and more resources will be relocated to assist. Those who relocate their resources take part in those higher prices because it is profitable to them to move, and it is beneficial to those who would otherwise be out-of-stock are able to get supplies.

When the need has been met, the flag will lower because it will no longer be such a hotspot; resources will be relocated to another area. This is the way it should work. With the flag being the marker showing a hotspot where resources are needed, if the flag isn't allowed to be raised or lowered accordingly, whatever prevents the flag's movement will make it so the resources aren't diverted properly. What are the ways that it will not work?

Preventing prices to rise: though the flagpole allows the flag to be raised higher, a bracket has been placed somewhere blocking the flag being raised. Though there is more need, without the flag being raised those in the marketplace do not see the demand, or do not see it as needed enough to relocate their resources to assist that spot.

Picture Steve Jobs being told he cannot sell the iPhone for more than $50. He might still produce it with a long-term agreement that whoever bought one had to pay a monthly service fee to offset the cost of production. Now picture a cap being set on that monthly service so the cost of production cannot be recouped. Apple wouldn't be producing the iPhone; others in the field wouldn't be putting their resources into producing like models.

Or, for hurricane-ravaged areas, if there was a limit placed on canned goods, then those goods would quickly consumed. Without seeing the demand needed with the raised flag, others who also sell the canned goods won't see the flag and won't relocate their resources to assist the area.

Preventing prices from falling: though the flag needs to be lowered so resources can go to other areas, there is a bracket blocking the lowering of the flag so the resources keep coming. Other areas need the backing, but they are not getting the resources while the original area doesn't need or want it, and even needs to purge the excess; resources flood the area as the flag is not being lowered. More and more resources will pile up, saturate the base and inevitably will overtake the flagpole leading to it collapse under the pressure of the piled-up resources – the prices, following the flag, will be down on the ground – a crash, or bust.

Recently, this can be seen in the housing market. This is tied to something good: home ownership. But just because something is linked to something good, doesn't mean that all parts of it are good for everyone, especially at any time. Sellers want to make the most they can from their product, but the market will state that any given thing is only worth so much. When the flag is kept higher than the marketplace says it should be is by giving the product an artificially high value and paying for the difference through infusing a value difference. Not everyone needs to buy a home. For those who do want a home, it doesn't necessarily mean it is the right time for them; they may not be able to make monthly payments. But with making home ownership easier with guarantees or assistance, the flag isn't lowered to where it should be to allow the marketplace to find the true value. Non-market infusions mean that along with an artificially high price to be paid, there will be a debt created that will also siphon value, helping that flagpole, when it does fall, fall that much quicker.

Picture a city with an average house cost of $100k. At first, the prices will reflect the proper market value. With so many people being able to purchase a home with assistance (non-market value credit) – not having to take on the normal market purchasing process, the home ownership rate will rise. The housing market will become saturated because the purchases will continue because all of those who couldn't normally afford a house, buy one. With all the purchasing of houses, the price will rise, and continue to rise as long as the demand is being met; the price may increase to $120k. Multiple factors will force the decline in the housing market, among them are the limitations that any given area can support at any given time, those who normally wouldn't have been able to afford their house have the reality that they can't afford the house and foreclose, and like any trend even in optimal circumstances, it will slow on its own. It will come to a point when the prices need to fall because the area has been otherwise saturated. Those who bought, or got a loan for a house in this city during the boom may have paid $120k, though when the market settled and corrected itself, the value of that purchase is only worth $80k. Those who didn't buy, but already owned their house also lost some value.

Nothing in the marketplace is static. There will always be some degree of fluctuation. With the market being left to correct itself, the fluctuations will be smaller and more quickly corrected. If the market isn't allowed to correct itself (of which it cannot actually be stopped, just delayed), the market will build and bring forth a collapse forcing the correction.

There is only one who can actually 'force' the brackets into place, and that is the government. The government is the non-market factor that sabotages the marketplace, through guaranteed loans, subsidies, licensing fees and regulations. All these things are enacted with the goal of helping people, under the guise of equality, but a scorched-earth policy's form equality is in the shared destruction. Any individual in the system who tried the same manipulation would be pointed out and lose their market share as the marketplace would correct itself from such acts – sometimes the correction is quick, sometimes slow. But the marketplace would correct itself, and expunge such manipulators who would be unable to have their affect any longer. There isn't getting away from the government.

Posted by GDX at  10:29 PM

### Barak Obama's 'faith'

[Originally posted 10/31/2011]

A concise definition of faith: 1: confidence in the value or truth of a thing, idea or person; 2: belief that doesn't rest on logical proof or empirical evidence; 3: loyalty to a thing, idea or person; 4: body of a religion or set of beliefs.

When one is speaking off-the-cuff, their values come to the fore as they advance those values without a conscious filter. However, there are two sides to the value 'coin' as there is the side that one sees – the explicitly declared values – and there are the implied values that show one's base value system that the conscious and explicit values are based upon. To say that any given thing is 'good,' that good is based upon something.

Most politicians speak of goods, but leave them undefined: what exactly 'affordable housing, health care' or what is 'fair'? Those ideas are the seen side of the coin; the manners by which those goals are to be achieved constitute the hidden side of the coin. What methods are to be implemented to achieve the undefined affordable whatever, or fairness?

Obama's faith can be seen in two key exchanges, both widely televised, but not much connected. The two exchanges involve when he was campaigning and he spoke with Samuel 'Joe the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, and in a debate moderated in part by Charlie Gibson.

With Joe the Plumber, after Obama talks [rambles] about justifying progressive taxes, he then makes the (in)famous 'spread the wealth around' comment. That comment was important, but more relevant and showing was in the democratic debate when he was asked about the capital gains tax (when rates decreased, revenues increased; when rates increased, revenue decreased), Obama's response was that "I'd look at raising the capital gains tax, for purposes of fairness..." Two separate comments about the goal of fairness; two separate comments implying his real value of fairness was redistribution through force – by legal plunder.

Fairness is never defined, it is just left floating around so that any politician may come along and try and blow it in the direction they desire for the time. But the hidden values of legal plunder comes through. Even with the premises that revenue goes down when the taxes were raised, and revenue rose when taxes were decreased, Obama still wanted to increase taxes for fairness, that is plunder the wealth from some to give to the others, and that is to punish the more successful for their success.

This is Obama's faith. It has nothing to do with religion, outside of the religion of the State to rule as a god, with the arrogance and false belief that they can command the laws of nature and economics. There may be some religious base to how he forms his ideas, but in action Obama's faith calls for the sacrifice of value of the wealthy (notice how wealthy isn't clearly defined so it can be changed), to be given to others. It doesn't matter that it isn't even financially pragmatic, for he didn't contest the premises of the negative relation of taxes and revenue; for the purposes of his faith, value must be plundered from those who worked for it, and handed out to those who didn't work for it. This doesn't mean that people don't work, for many do. But hard work isn't enough. Obama's faith doesn't care about that, though. It calls for others to sacrifice their value.

Posted by GDX at 11:52 PM

### 'The Land of Opportunity'

[Originally posted 11/22/2011]

America is often called 'the land of opportunity.' But, what exactly does it mean to say that America is the 'land of opportunity?' That saying is a colloquialism summarizing that each individual has the right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' But, of course, that itself needs to be examined. (This will be outside due process in criminal investigations).

What is the right to life? Simply, the right to life is not to be murdered. This is different from being killed, for killed may include accident, sickness and age and there is no such right or possibility to protect one from each of those situations; only certain types of accidents may be criminal. Murder brings with it, its own context through a willful, intentional and unlawful killing of another.

What is the right to liberty? Simply, the right to not have undue restrictions placed upon one.

What is the pursuit of happiness? Simply, in following one's right to life, and with the liberty to act, one chooses the path that is seen best in life to each individual. There may be nature and nurture influences, and those may be embraced or rebelled against, but the emphasis is the choice in/on that pursuit.

Who has rights?-a collective of any size (family, community, corporation, State) or the individual? The options here are mutually exclusive, for if the individual has rights then the collective may not impose upon or sacrifice the individual; if the collective has rights over the individual, then regardless of individual desires, they may be positioned or used for collective ends.

Regardless of the type of collective, and regardless of any size of a collective, it is nothing more than a collection of individuals. Individuals who have something categorizing them together, regardless whether it is meaningful or superficial, inherited or willfully joined in to, make up a collective: e.g. blondes, family a religious/political group.

Any grouping by its increased number doesn't gain extra rights. Just because one may be in a larger group doesn't negate the rights of the smallest group, or most importantly the individual. If 99% decide they don't like the 1%, they don't have any more authority, with their numbers, to murder, enslave or steal from the 1%.

So the individual has rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If the individual has the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, what does the State, or collective have to give the individual?

We must first make one more distinction, and that is between collectives, for not all collectives are equal. There are two types of collectives: the State, that has the force of law behind it: all others that do not have the force of law behind them. This is the difference between someone (or group) legally being able to force another to obey or punish according to any law that they may enact, contrasted with any group where though in a collective, the punishments (outside of voluntarily entered into legal contracts) are not punishable by law. One may leave the dictates of a private collective while one cannot walk away from the dictates of the State.

Returning to the question of what the collective is to give the individual; the aforementioned difference must be examined. Is it up to the collective to assist the individual with their respective rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? As private collectives are willfully joined, they may assist their members, but the State as a public collective cannot assist people with those rights. The State is to protect through enforcing the laws the individual pursing their rights, but not to assist them in achieving those rights. If the State did assist one in pursuing rights, what would it look like and why would it be wrong for the State to act as such?

A couple examples are needed to show why the State collective is not to assist. The first amendment right to free speech is a specified form of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as speech is an extension of thought, speaking one's mind is an act of liberty and pursuant to one's goals. Each individual has the right to speak. What is it to assist an individual with their right to speak? A private collective, being willfully belonging to, may through those voluntary actions as a whole assist anyone. FOX, CBS, Discovery, OWN or any other television channel may offer someone an audience through giving time, or selling time on their broadcast. The State is funded by taxes, which are taken by force, and it doesn't own these networks. To assist people in speaking, to say as broadcasting their speech, the State could only force those who can broadcast to give access to their networks. That violates the rights of those broadcasters on who they choose to allow to assist in broadcasting their speech.

On a more general level, there is no way to assist in the right to life. There are ways of assisting various facets to preserve one's life, such as with food, housing and healthcare. Private collectives may offer one assistance in these various facets, which are implemented voluntarily. The State giving any of these is by force. The State doesn't grow food, build a house or offer any health services outside of what it has taken away by force from someone else.

In order to 'give' away anything, the State must first violate the rights of another. This isn't equivalent to where each member of society contributes to that which enables the State to work in areas that it should be active in: e.g. military, judicial system. The giving away of goods is through the act of legal plunder, the taking away from those who made wealth, in order to give it to another; the one who produced the wealth receives no benefit from having the wealth taken.

There is no such thing as free wealth; it may be free to the receiver, but that is because someone else already paid the cost. Whether it is food, health care or some other thing that was produced, it was done by one who vested their own wealth (financial and labor) into the production of that good. As they live their life, through their liberty to act as they pursue their happiness, they create. As they created, it is up to them how to sell, or give away their creation. Private collectives, being voluntary may receive donations or discounts (or not) that may be offered to their individual members. The State doesn't ask; it mandates. The State through legal force takes the wealth, depriving the liberty and pursuit of happiness of the producer.

Some will state: what about the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of those who receive the 'free' goods? We must see the common link in those rights: they are from the individual to act on their own in society; they are not guarantees that are to be given, that is first stolen from another to be given to a second. There is no right to violate the rights of another. No one comes into existence holding a claim as a master over another's life; the State cannot offer someone a whip in order to take something from another.

This is the land of opportunity. The land of opportunity is of the individual to pursue his own life, liberty and happiness. This includes those who work to create a better good, or help those who are not able to help themselves through voluntary interactions. The land of opportunity is that where the individual may make a life as big as he can with what he can create, but not by forcing another to be the tool to assist him. There are other restrictions in life and they are inevitable; one may not be as strong, smart, be born in the wrong area, among various other factors that may hinder attaining one's goal. But, these hindrances have a possibility to be overcome; the State's hindrances are legal restrictions upon the individual who may be fined or imprisoned for violations. Not everyone will succeed, or can succeed. The opportunity is not freedom from the restrictions life and nature create, but from undue restrictions man may create. The land of opportunity is where anyone may have the chance, that is the opportunity, to try.

Posted by GDX at 10:45 PM

### What Would YOU do if You Saw Someone Sick, or...

[Originally posted 12/07/2011]

As a way of trying to lead someone into either being painted as an uncaring, mean-spirited rube or to bolster the position that there is a need for free health care is to ask: what would you do if you saw someone without funds, sick or dying. It has been asked numerous times, especially with the push for Obama's health care law, justification for Romney's MA health coverage, and beyond to the importance of health care as a topic in the Republican nominee for President debates.

The very verbiage of the question (by intent) sets up a mutually exclusive response: either the one asked must agree that the State must be allowed to come in and save the infirmed, or the infirmed will suffer and die. This dichotomy is false, and used as it is, a shameful ploy; by saying that we are not for the State to use legal force against one to help another by no means that we are for the infirmed one's suffering.

If any one of us sees someone sick, or potentially dying on our front yard, we have one of three responses to make: 1) ignore them, which is total irresponsibility (responsibility here as taking direct action with a specific focus) on, and won't deal with the issue; 2) kick them off the property, which is responsibility on the expulsion, but just pushes the issue away; 3) assist them to the extent one thinks and feels is right, which is the beginning of taking care of, taking some responsibility and alleviating the issue.

Which option is it when the State is to take care of the infirmed? It is, in actuality, option 1. It is ignoring self-responsibility when confronted with an issue, wanting to have the State come in and take over. This doesn't take care of the issue, while it doesn't force the issue away; it just enables one to look away with a clear conscience. A system will be created that someone, somewhere will take care of the infirmed, somehow.

Notice, the first action is diverting responsibility. It is an embracing of a 'We've thrown money at it, and that's enough' mentality. If one was actually interested in the health and well-being of the infirmed, they wouldn't just pass on the responsibility, but make sure the care received was timely, appropriate and economical: timely, to address urgency; appropriate to deal with the actual infirmity; economical for time and money are limited, so those resources could be maximized. A couple key points (among numerous other points) to focus on with universal coverage, or any other form of State-covered/assisted care: 1) it doesn't increase the suppliers of health care, but does increase the number of people going to those suppliers; 2) with the coverage/assistance, it will prompt the larger pool to use it more often. Flooding demand, and not increasing supply will not make care more timely, appropriate or economical. Or, in other words it will be health care 'tragedy of the commons.'

With the dichotomous manner the [State-covered or infirmed die] question asked, the best option is ignored: individuals taking the initiative to help: charity. This is in both areas of individual acts at the moment (helping someone who fell get back to their feet), and in organizations others may come to (individuals volunteering and forming groups): offering a hand directly, or pooling resources to create a charitable organization/medical service. Its psychological fact, the less direct responsibility one has to something, the less one feels vested into that something; this is in both closeness (proximity) to that thing, as well as when one is blended in a crowd (anonymity) – someone, somewhere, somehow. Privately, and voluntarily, there is a direct investment in whatever charitable offerings that may be made. Instead of the throwing money at a problem attitude, there will be actual oversight to make sure care is timely, appropriate and economical.

The aforementioned is on a pragmatic consideration; there are also moral issues to consider. Some will state the moral issue is about leaving the infirmed alone to suffer; that is following their lead in their false dichotomy. There are other moral issues to consider. Like most other aspects in politics, the goal may not actually reflect one's values and moral positions as much as their plans of implementing those goals. It isn't just about wanting to help the infirmed, but how to help them. How does the State assist the infirmed?—through laws. Laws mean that through the legal use of force, those who managed to create and earn wealth will have it taken from them. That wealth will then be put into a system where there is a high degree of indirect responsibility and little oversight. The end is to give the wealth to those who need help and aren't able to afford things themselves; through force, wealth to pay for services is taken from those who have and given haphazardly to those who have not. Where is the morality in the use of force to take wealth?—the use of force to throw money at a problem?—the use of force to acknowledge someone needs help, and to put them into a system that is flooded, meaning they cannot get timely, appropriate or economical care? There is no morality in any of it, and illness does not justify theft or enslavement.

The proper way of answering the question is to turn it around. When I state by turning it around, I mean by instead of allowing the asker to lead us into their false dichotomy, to ask them what would they do, for they see the infirmed in order to direct us to allow the State to take our means of sustaining ourselves in order to help that infirmed one. "What will YOU do?-you who also sees someone who needs help." And, continue "I advance private, voluntary help, not the threat of force that doesn't directly assist, but indirectly helps through the direct threat of force. Don't just state someone (else) or something (State) will step and take responsibility for you. What will YOU do?"

The free market and free people help others in ways that are more timely, appropriate and economical. The State is a way to humor oneself that something is being done to benefit the infirmed, while what is mostly being done is the easing of one's conscience. If the goal is helping those who need it, the way to do help is by private, voluntary actions, with local implementation. It isn't legal or moral for anyone to take a gun and rob another to take their wealth to pay for any bills; it isn't something that can be made moral through numbers voting on it. Get the State out of the way, and stop it siphoning the limited resources and much more can be done, and done morally.

Morality first; pragmatism second.

Posted by GDX at  10:15 PM

###  Foreign Policy Ignorance & Hypocrisy

[Originally posted 01/07/2012]

There is a large swell, especially amongst the Republicans, calling to shrink the size of the government; however, many are either simply ignorantly inconsistent or are hypocrites who call for maintaining a high-level of military presence overseas, if not actually increasing an imperial footprint. Among the presidential candidates, each one (outside Ron Paul and Gary Johnson) and epitomized by Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum and especially by Barak Obama of whom others have (rightly) criticized for his expansive use of military force.

Ron Paul, as of late, has been getting lambasted by the imperialists for not continuing the militaristic march toward inculcating 'democracy' and 'defending American values' from those who are not attacking the USA. The lambasting hasn't just come from others seeking the presidential nomination; the continual droning of the same tripe has come from various media outlets who like an echo chamber, reverberate what others have spoken.

The major sticking-point most advance as the biggest example of Ron Paul's 'weakness on foreign policy' is Iran's drive to acquire nuclear weapons. The drone goes: how could Ron Paul allow the terrorist state to get just one nuclear bomb, for then they'll surely raze an America city. Therefore, we need a strong leader who will prevent such harm from befalling the US, someone who is willing to prevent Iran from achieving manufacturing nuclear weapons. Ron Paul states that Iran's push to get a nuclear weapon is not a catastrophic event.

Does Ron Paul state that Iran getting nuclear weapons is a good thing?—no. He also states that if there was a credible threat, it would be up to Congress to make a declaration of war; the imperialists use the concern about Iran's nuclear program to advance pre-emptive strikes, led by presidential action. Those who spout off a love for the Constitution, but call for the President to initiate an attack need to check their premises. The power to declare war isn't intended for one man's whim; it was to be intended as the great, grave measure it is, and decided by Congress.

What does presidential action without a declaration of Congress look like? It looks like Vietnam, Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Bay of Pigs, etc; keep in mind, Usama bin Laden was trained in a similar vein as the Bay of Pigs plan – by the US, to be against someone else we didn't like. How did each of those turn out for the US?—poorly. Recently, the majority of politicians denounced the ruling party's actions when their own party was not in the majority; Democrats denounced Bush for Iraq; Republicans denounced Obama for Libya. Where many Republicans and Democrats are in unison are calls for the president to be strong against Iran. Old national habits die hard. Only Ron Paul and Gary Johnson seek to break the national habit.

Some then advance: what about Israel? About Israel: Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, in a speech before Congress, stated Israel can take care of itself.

Lastly, what we need is a look at the presence of the US around the world, and its possible consequences. On top of the billions of dollars in aid going to various countries, some with propped-up, corrupt regimes, there are around half-a-million troops stationed in more than 100 countries around the world, as part of a department that cost more than all other military departments around the world, combined. Questions that should emerge from our presence: why are we in so many countries, with so many troops; what is the cost of having that presence (not just dollars, but definitely including the dollar amount)?

It is not a popular stand to make, to say that American presence and influence may engender hostility against us. After all, we're the 'good guys' trying to help and 'spread democracy.' But, that's still something we need to look at.

There is an objective moral value in a culture. By that, I'm referring to the advanced moral system within a culture and how truly moral it is: the culture that enforces moral codes by law and represses women for being women, stones homosexuals and places numerous restrictions on what may be said/examined/advanced, is not as moral as the culture that embraces liberty as long as individual rights are not violated. With that said, individuals and groups still generally embrace their own culture, and growing in it, or just embracing it, see their culture as the proper one; even if it entails curtailing certain behaviors by the threat of force, for in their culture that is acceptable. Those in or embracing their culture do so, and in seeing their culture as the proper one will resist outside forces trying to impose changes.

These changes may be not through using (direct) force such as aiding and propping up a regime (Hosni Mubarak), or using direct force (Moammar Gadhafi or Saddam Hussein). Either situation, there was a conflict and conflicts have at least two sides; one gets helped at the expense of the other, and with US intervention it is done by a third party either harming one's cause or assisting one's enemies. Much argument was made with the notion of the 'Ground Zero Mosque,' but how about if it was directly, and openly funded by Iran, from where they had their military stationed, were completing military actions and refused to leave?—would that engender US opposition against Iran?

Now, who are the ones who seek to have a weak US? The ones who seek to keep expanding imperialistic goals, to police the world, to spend vast sums of lives and dollars fighting against those who are not threatening our own safety, or propping up those who see the US as just another tool, a means to an end of their own power; are they the ones who stand for a strong country? Or is the one who stands for a strong country the one who doesn't seek to police the world, but encourages trade and follows the rule of law set forth in the Constitution that our Founding Fathers created? The choice is clear.

Posted by GDX at  2:03 AM

### On Moral Equivalency

[Originally Posted 01/21/2012]

There has been some criticism of the foreign policy of the United States, and a sure spark of outrage comes about when anyone mentions that the US may have played a part in bringing about the attacks upon our land and citizenry. Critics of that criticism of our foreign policy decry we are morally equating what the US government is trying to do, and what our enemies are trying to do. That claim of being morally equivalent is disingenuous and flat out, untrue.

Consider, a pair of neighbors, each house holding extended families. Family A is a liberty-loving family; Family B is a totalitarian family. Family A observes equal rights for its members; Family B is heavily patriarchal, and going beyond seeks to oppress the female members, even by violence. In our example here, though abused, the women in Family B stay and still embrace their family.

One day, a teenage girl of Family B decides she wanted to look out at the stars, but she went out of the house alone to look at the stars. The next day, the uncle in Family A sees the teenage girl crying, and that she has a black eye. This teenage girl decides that she no longer wants to remain at the house, and seeks to escape. Now, uncle from Family B comes out and begins to beat her for trying to escape. Family A uncle comes and beats Family B uncle into submission so the teenage girl can get away from the abuse.

Here comes the head of the family from Family B. His teenage daughter has left, and his brother has been beaten. Will he be angry at how things have transpired? Add to how he feels, that he accepts violence as a means of dealing with his problems – should Family A think that there will be some attempt at vengeance from Family B? It would be foolish to not expect anything.

This in no way equates the violence that was used to beat the girl with the violence used to defend her. One scenario, the violence was a tool of oppression while in the other scenario, violence was a tool to break that oppression. Moral equivalency would state that there was no difference between the scenarios; oppression or freedom, it doesn't matter.

It is not moral equivalency to state that by the uncle in Family A's beating the uncle in Family B, that the As had retaliation coming – it is just an acceptance that from the actions that have been taken, that A should prepare, and not be surprised if B does attack in some form.

There is a characteristic of many-a-hero in stories across history that was tied into their downfall: hubris. Hubris is arrogant pride that makes one see themselves as beyond normal consequences. It can affect a country collectively just as it can any individual. To not see the actions of a country as beyond any negative consequence is the surest way to bring about its downfall.

Posted by GDX at 4:09 PM

### 2012(1984), Amerisoc and Barak 'O'Brien'

[Originally Posted 01/25/2012]

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

This admonition comes from _1984_ , the classic book written by George Orwell. In _1984_ , a dystopian future of a totalitarian regime is shown in its full, and necessary consequence. Parallels of such a system's nascency can be seen in contemporary America today. We do not need to go far into history to see where these parallels began, we just have to look at the last two administrations to see how much it has accelerated.

In _1984_ , the story takes place in Oceania under the principles of Ingsoc (English Socialism). The ruling party is the Party; there is the elite Inner Party, there is the Outer Party who are the citizens, and the 'proles' who are the lowest class. America has its Inner party, and it has nothing to do with whether one is a Republican or a Democrat as both sides have members in Amerisoc. Here we will see numerous 'R's' and 'D's' showing who makes up our Inner Party.

Oceania is one of the three remaining countries after a great war, and Oceania is constantly at war with the remaining Eurasia or Eastasia; the actual enemy may change, as is needed for one enemy is always needed. War without end. Our accelerated move to Amerisoc was the beginning of our great war without end: the 'War on Terror,' after the attacks of 09/11/01. The Bush (R) administration began this 'great' war, and though Obama (D) campaigned on stopping and overturning various Bush creations, Obama actually continued them; the broken promises include: closing Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), using diplomacy in dealing with other countries (Libya and Yemen), withdrawing from Iraq (we have in part but not totally, for we need a 'residual' force), to bring the troops home; Obama went beyond the level of attacks of Bush with drone strikes.

But let us step back a moment before getting into the details of how there are Republicans and Democrats as Inner Party members. The structure of Ingsoc's Party structure needs to be examined in how it deals with its subjects. There are four main divisions of government: the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue) where lies are created, and history is erased or modified in order to defend the Party's current position; the Ministry of Plenty (Miniplenty) where rationing of poor-quality resources are offered to the undernourished masses; the Ministry of Love (Miniluv) where prisoners are incarcerated, tortured and killed; the Ministry of Peace (Minipax) where the plans for war are formulated and enacted. There is also the Thought Police who arrest those who are thinking improperly, meaning not as the Party desires. Finally, and as he was the main Inner Party member we saw, there was O'Brien who first takes us in as a friend and confidant, but then shows his true beliefs and seeks to break us down as he explains the way of the world... according to the Party.

Like the agencies in Oceania, our governmental agencies have names that gloss over their true, pernicious reality; agencies are not alone, for various bills and laws that are passed are also named as beneficence, but have malicious and rights-violating reality.

Examples of names sounding good, but hiding bad ideas:

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) sounds good, for piracy is theft and stopping theft is a good thing, of course. Though the wording in the beginning of SOPA is that the bill isn't to infringe upon First Amendment rights, through vague definitions someone thought to be violating the law, or linked in someway, however indirectly to someone charged with violating the law may have their own internet shut down. The charge is enough, and afterward the defendant may 'prove' their innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. SOPA shuts down our internet speech, our first amendment.

National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) also sounds good, for who doesn't want to have their homeland well-defended? However, NDAA allows the government to detain anyone without trial or even being formally charged. Obama has the power, but advised he 'won't' use it; how reassuring. Let us remember his promise to close Gitmo (whether or not you agree it should be closed, it was one broken promise among other broken promises). NDAA actually enables Obama to pack Gitmo with more detainees, even US citizens.

The Patriot Act was passed not too long after 9/11 (by Bush), and has been recently extended (by Obama and most of Congress). One's own country is the ultimate 'home team.' However, the Patriot Act, beyond its flowery name is codified violations of the fourth Amendment, as government agents may authorize their own searches, instead of needing to go to a judge.

The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) was created as a part of the Department of Homeland of Security that was created following 9/11. The very name states its about safe transportation; the actions of the TSA involves that which doesn't deal with transportation, but with violating rights as its parent (Homeland Security via Patriot Act) states its agents may search anyone without a warrant.

Affordable Health Care for America Act (colloquially known as Obamacare) isn't about health but is about medical costs; those are not the same. In making it mandatory, Obamacare, also by law has the people tied to governmental services, and with such strings begins to state that as we are receiving its benefits, it may begin to tell us how to live how they define a healthy life, and judge our individual worth whether we receive necessary medical services.

These are but a few of the numerous examples of fools' gold offered by the Party.

Amid the countless other plans/bills and agencies comprising the Inner party, there is Newspeak (an official language designed to meet ideological needs) and Doublethink (holding mutually contradictory meanings, and allowing prevarication at any and all times) to make the Party appear correct in all manners, all the time.

Some examples of our Inner Party members speaking Newspeak, and pushing Doublethink to the populace:

George Bush (R) "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."

Al Gore (D) "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

A memo from the Defense Department called for changing the term 'Global War on Terror' to 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' That was just furthering Bush's coining the term 'War on Terror.'

John McCain (R) stated that the US, itself was a battlefield and needed to be treated as such.

Obama's administration calling for raising taxes on 'millionaires & billionaires' while considering those who make just $250k a year in the millionaire club.

Joe Biden (D) "You're telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt? – the answer is yes. I'm telling you."

Michelle Bachmann (R) and Rick Santorum (R) both call for small government, but want that government to decide who can marry, what is acceptable contraception and (like many other Rs and Ds) continued prohibition, that is 'war on drugs.'

Mitt Romney (R) and Obama (D) both advance that one can be mandated to purchase what the State decided has to be purchased in order to be a law-abiding citizen.

Nancy Pelosi (D) advanced a bold statement of "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it."

Obama chastised 'rugged individualism' when he meant isolationism. His choice of words, however, were intentional for it was the nature of individualism he wanted to attack as he championed the Party.

These are just some of the more recent, or more egregious examples of the Inner Party advancing their place in the lives of we citizens.

There are numerous other areas where the Inner Party has begun to creep into our lives through implementation of the various rules and regulations they have enacted. For 'our health' Michael Bloomberg (once D, then R, then Independent (I)) began a legal push to lower salt levels in food; both Rs and Ds have enacted laws banning smoking, even on one's own property; various 'sin' taxes as a form of punishment on certain goods/services; in Alaska it is illegal to get drunk in a bar; it is illegal to purchase raw milk; in numerous states it is illegal to spit on the sidewalk. Just in _new_ laws going into effect 2012 are: banning caffeine in beer; making it illegal to use a cell phone in a car; banning incandescent light bulbs; raising minimum wages; banning daytime drink promotions; banning pajamas from being worn in public. Most of these are simply 'foot-in-the-door' measures at the state level. But there are even national rules being considered such as a limitation as to how much money one may earn in the Gas Price Spike Act (HR-3784). Though there are few exceptions that deal with rights-violations, notice that most laws do not entail violations of another individual's rights – it is the law itself that is the violation of individual rights. It doesn't matter that some of these laws have not been enacted; the fact that they have been advanced shows the Party's push for control.

More egregious laws that affect us at a greater cost and obvious danger are the new SOPA, NDAA, the expansion of TSA searches to go beyond airports, instituting COBRA checkpoints wherever the TSA deems necessary and drug-raids for the war on drugs. However, what we must be wary of are the precedents set whereby the result appears good, but based off a bad precedent – it is the ingesting of a sweet red fruit that, too late, one finds was lethally poisonous. Anwar al-Awlaki's killing is just such a red fruit; an apparent 'bad guy' prompting various attacks on the US and US citizens. He was a terrorist, and deserving to be killed is shouted by those in power, and at face value it appears that the killing was a good act – that is as those who authorized the killing want it to appear. But, what we must look at is the context of the killing. Constitutional protections are not there to defend the "villain"; constitutional protections are there to defend _all_ of us against a tyrannical government. The villains are to get that protection as well, and when found to be guilty punished accordingly even if the sentence is death. Anwar al-Awlaki was not tried, or even charged. He was deemed by the Inner Party as deserving death, and assassinated. The precedent set was someone the State deemed as a threat, without due process, can be killed; the precedent remains to be applied back on all of us.

Now, combine the killing of another without due process, the enactment of SOPA where free speech is curtailed, the NDAA where without charges one may be detained indefinitely, an increase in the number of Freedom of Information Act (FIOA) requests are being refused, and that everywhere and everyone may be considered a combatant on the indefinite battlefield, we have the beginning of the Minipax, Miniluv and especially Minitrue where the Inner Party may take those it deems problematic and 'remove' them. They may be removed for some wrong, even without being formally charged. There exists some law that may justify focusing on them, and those laws continue to encompass more of our lives. If we're not sent to the Miniluv, we're still subject to Miniplenty.

This brings us to how Obama is O'Brien, and the face of the coming Inner Party's plan. The Inner Party has an ubiquitous presence, and as O'Brien championed the Inner Party is the collective, the one in power, immortal as compared to the individual who is singular and will perish. This applies to Obama/O'Brien himself, for he is just a cog in the Inner Party wheel, and it isn't him, himself, that needs to be addressed, but the Inner Party. More on that, later.

A major weapon of the Inner Party is in turning the people against one another. As Stephen Molyneux observed "Get the masses to attack themselves and it takes less effort for the ruling class to rule over the masses." _1984_ also stated 'the war was not to be won, but continued – the real war was for the control of the subjects by the ruling group.' This takes the shape in blatant class warfare, but it is not the extent of it. In _1984_ , the Inner Party had the Spies and Youth League, a youth organization encouraging children to report on their elders to the Thought Police, and was a system of indoctrination. Amerisoc's Inner Party today continues in making it more difficult to home school and while in public schools, trying to divide families with Al Gore's advising children they know more than their parents on things in life; the Department of Education while continuing to have an abominable track record in grades and results while siphoning funds, pushes political agendas such as 'The Story of Stuff,' and in various forms of John F. Kennedy's famous (infamous) admonition "... ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," and the various mouthpieces of the Inner Party speaking about a 'fair share,' which is Newspeak of some only paying while others only receiving. Party schools (government-run) will indoctrinate that the Party is good and needed to help in everything, for the Party must help everyone in their lives. An educated populace would be able to be self-sufficient, and that is not what the Party needs; keep the masses dumb, dependent and obedient, ready to turn on each other, for the Party (see Obama's Attack Watch).

It is not by coincidence that the Inner Party's figurehead is Big Brother, and has a ubiquitous presence. One of the goals of the Party is to destroy the concept of 'ownlife,' the desire of pursuing one's own desires instead of the Party's. The most efficient manner was that of eroding personal bonds, and replacing them with the new family headed by Big Brother. The Spies and Youth League was where the separation began, but the press to wipeout ownlife didn't finish there; following it was the Junior Anti-Sex League, where celibacy was encouraged as was 'artsem' (artificial insemination), in order to wipe out personal bonding – one was not to value another more than anyone else. There was to be no love, no family outside of the Party and Big Brother – the new paternal figure who would guide, protect and provide for the people. We have Big Brother guiding us with the numerous aforementioned laws that exist and have been proposed, that do not have anything to do with rights-violations but curtail ownlife. And, all that is required is absolute obedience.

To continue the drive wipeout ownlife Newspeak gets updated, meaning words have been removed to become 'unwords' which are words no longer considered words and to be removed from language. One of those who worked on Newspeak remarked "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words." Just as the goal of removing sex and family from individual life so people could focus only on the Party, so too does Newspeak 'narrow the range of thought' to make 'thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.' It removed connotation, leaving simplest denotation and keeping definitions open enough to enable doublethink to work: Ministry of Peace is for war; Ministry of Love is for imprisonment, torture and killing; Miniplenty is for rationing. Precision in language was to be avoided, so responses could be more automatic; no longer are there words such as 'great' or 'grand' for they, and synonyms have been replaced with 'plusgood.' Some definitions and associations are removed, so 'equal' couldn't be associated with politically – there is just what the Party states, nothing more so argument with the Party isn't possible. The Party is the only axiom needed.

Before we can conclude, we must introduce two more characters who were both Outer Party members: Winston Smith, the protagonist and thought criminal; Parsons, who is Smith's neighbor, Party member with a family (dying breed in Oceania) and is a simple and true-believer in the Party and Big Brother. Winston's job is important as he works in Minitrue, making sure the Party doesn't have any negative impressions. Parsons job isn't important; he is there to show the unquestioning faith in the Party; for example: while working Winston gets the update from the Miniplenty that choco rations were going to decrease from 30 grams to 25 grams – a negative look – so, instead of saying the rations are being cut down, Winston has the records altered to show that previous rations were 20 grams, so the 25 grams looks as an increase. Parsons, afterward, upon seeing Winston asks if he heard the good news of the choco rations being increased to 25 – Parsons elatedly said "doubleplusgood."

This brings us to Barak O'Brien's advancing and explaining the necessity and plan of the Party, how the aforementioned ties all in together. O'Brien explains this to Winston; the explanation takes place through numerous torture sessions in a torture room and cell at the Ministry of Love. As Winston focused on ownlife with Julia, a woman he came to love, and they both shared their passion, the Thought Police arrested them both. The main point of O'Brien's interrogation/lesson was to cure Winston of his thoughtcrime – of not living enough for the Party. To work in conjunction with the torture, Winston is starved and through an unspecified time, becomes weak and emaciated. As O'Brien continued the lessons, Winston was tortured, lost in delirium/hallucinating and even being coddled as O'Brien acted as a paternal force protecting Winston in between tortures. We have Obama's big smile as he watches over the implementation of the Inner Party's expansion into our lives. In the State of the Union Address, Obama praised the efficiency of the military, mentioning how each member can be placed where they're needed to achieve a goal. Military efficiency is to be praised, for the military; its model of obedience or face legal consequences is not a model for liberty of free citizens of the nation.

The key idea O'Brien advanced in the 'curing' session is that there is the Party, and nothing else. The Party is immortal. Anything that wasn't of the Party was not important at best, didn't exist at worst. Individuals who were decided by the Party as problematic became 'unpersons.' Winston was well acquainted with what an unperson was, for in Minitrue, part of his job was removing unpersons from the records – an unperson was someone who was removed from existence, physically, mentally and historically. Unpersons end by 'never' existing. As part of the Party being everything, only what the Party advanced was real. Newspeak was modified to continue the removal on unwords that not just the words were removed, but the ideas those words represented were removed from existence, or corrupted to reflect what fits Newspeak, e.g. liberal in the early 1900s referred to a preference for small government, but as the Party wanted to use the term it now refers to someone a preference for government influence in daily life.

Winston wrote in his journal, that 'there is truth, and there is untruth' and 'freedom to say two plus two is four' [to speak an objective truth]. An objective truth is outside the Party's omniscience and omnipotence, so with an objective truth being advanced outside the Party being something that didn't exist, one who advanced it was guilty of having a 'defective memory.' A major focus of the torture was to get Winston into delirium, so he would see the four fingers held up by O'Brien, and see as O'Brien advised "Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once." In dreamed delirium, Winston was having an amicable talk with O'Brien who said "The law of gravity is nonsense. No such law exists. If I think I float, and you think I float, then it happens." O'Brien summarized in a torture session "Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth."

We citizens are both Smith and Parsons; the one who questions and the one who accepts. How does each one of us act? However, we, like them are individuals and as individuals are overall, irrelevant to the Party. Winston thought that with Parsons' blind faith in the Party, that he'd be forever safe. When the Party needed to make an example that the individual would be sacrificed for the collective, Parsons was offered up to sate the State; he begged to be placed in a labor camp where he could still be useful. Parsons' obedience was through-and-through, believing himself guilty of the crimes he was charged for the Party couldn't be wrong and charge an innocent. Winston knew he'd be caught eventually, and argued against his captors, even through his torment. When arguing the difference in existence between men like himself contrasted with Big Brother, O'Brien simply replied [on Big Brother] 'of course he exists,' [about Winston] "You do not exist."

Where does this bring us?

We find ourselves in the process of O'Brien's breaking of Winston; as we assert our individualism, Obama mocks it. After an indefinite amount of time of starvation and torture, our ragged national body, like Winston's physical body is brought before a mirror as our tormenter chides us 'look at you' and to emphasize their potency, pulls out one of our teeth. When we decry that 'you did this to me,' Barak O'Brien simply states "No. You did this to yourself." Our weak economy, dollar, housing market, continued loss of jobs, are all 'our' fault – not the Party's. It doesn't matter that the laws and regulations the Party (again Rs & Ds) created were the causes of the weaknesses, that there is a difference between forced starvation and a diet; the Party cannot be wrong.

All the various faces of the Party, and Barak O'Brien move to quash those who are not towing the party line (towing the party line isn't enough, see Parsons). The various laws, old and coming do not punish violations of rights, but seek to curtail behaviors that in essence seek to make ownlife more enjoyable; salt, alcohol and other forms of pleasure. Through SOPA, NDAA (and if the NDAA isn't successful, there is the Enemy Expatriation Act whereby citizenship may be revoked), our own homes being considered as part of the battlefield, numerous laws restricting and intruding into our free behavior, we are becoming more enmeshed in the world of the Party, and we may 'unexist' when we've been deemed problematic. There is an ever-expanding list of ways that we may be considered problematic. Simply arguing against the power-grab of the State may get us listed as malcontents, and persons of interest. The TSA's and drug-raid expansions, with the other laws shows that the Party can get us at any time, any place.

Think that only 'the bad guys' will be the ones who get prosecuted? That only the ones who are the lawbreakers are the ones getting what they deserve? What are the laws expanding into?—salt intake, dress-codes, speech. Each law is expanding more and more to embrace more and more behavior. Coupled with the numerous ways that the police may disregard individual rights (wiretaps, searches, detainment, tracking... all without warrants and due process), the precedent has been set that the Party may get into our lives in numerous ways, according to its whim. With expanding laws that first appear to be 'for our own good' the laws become tools of the Thought Police curtailing ownlife, while advancing life for the Party: Party social engineering. The die has been case, as one who hadn't picked up a gun, fired a shot, only spoke against the Party didn't even get due process, and was assassinated; don't let the appearance of Anwar's guilt be the guiding factor in how we act. Recognize, legally, he was someone who didn't have charges against him, but he was still killed. Precedents come back and are applied to us; due process has been removed, and will be removed again.

Finally, there is the assumption that Winston had for the reason for his curing by torture, for why people had to be broken in Miniluv: that it was for their own good, and the greater good for all. This is where O'Brien seemed to get flustered, and increased the severity of the torture. O'Brien quickly corrected Winston. Power is its own reward; its own end. There was no love for the proles, or even the Outer Party from the Inner Party. There was just control: dominance. As O'Brien continued when mocking Winston's hope for Man who would overcome Big Brother, "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever." That is the true nature of the Party. The laws they make do not make us safer, or improve our lives outside of herded sheep to be shorn or slaughtered; the Party wants self-abasement from the people. Even if there was an Inner Party member who did think that we could be guided for our own benefit, it isn't the nature of the position sought by those in the Inner Party, and they'd be drowned out by those who want to stomp on our face for even the Inner Party members, as individuals may unexist for contesting the Party. Should, however, an actual "saint" emerge in the Party, will it matter? Slavery is slavery, regardless of the goals of who holds the whips.

It isn't too late. We still have time, but it is dwindling. The Inner party is not wholly joined, though their goals are coming nearer together. The combination of the drive of the Party (Rs and Ds), along with technology is bringing the event horizon that much closer. Based off of the audio systems in England, there are areas in the US where pre-crime light systems to highlight those who are suspected of possibly getting ready to commit a crime, scanners read license plates to 'justify' pulling someone over even if the driver isn't doing anything illegal but is on a suspect list, and local police forces are now getting drones that were created for military use.

We need to stop the Party from continuing as it wants, before we have a two-way screen in our rooms with a woman telling us that we aren't trying hard enough in our morning exercise; before her bosses decide that we need to unexist.

Don't let the would-be Inner Party members control our present.

Posted by GDX at  10:39 PM

### Governing and Government

[Originally Posted 02/09/2012]

What is it to govern?—it is to control, regulate or something. The necessary questions that follow are: who governs?—what is to be governed? The big question following the aforementioned is: do we govern our individual life or is the Government to govern our lives?

What is it for an individual to govern his own life? For each of us to govern our own life is in following our individual rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; i.e. controlling, regulating and directing our lives how we see fit. This is not to state that there is nothing that restricts what we may do, for self-governance is a principle to be applied and as a principle, it is to be applied to each one of us in society. This means that no one has the right to violate another's rights – govern another through compulsion. Whatever one wishes to consume, act with voluntary partners, or pursue any professional/spiritual/personal (blending all three) is nobody else's legal concern as long as their rights are not violated. Any action, without rights-violating, is voluntary. A corollary of this involves no one has to protect us from the negative consequences for our poor decisions; to embrace our individual rights is to be responsible for our actions. Rights violations can be legally punished.

What is it for the Government to govern an individual's life? For the Government to govern our lives is by telling us what to do; i.e. controlling, regulating and directing each of us and how we live. Individual desires and especially rights are at best, a secondary concern and may be upheld or rescinded as deemed necessary. Whatever may be eaten or drank is that which is allowed; the same is true for pursuits of relationships or professional/spiritual/personal goals. What is allowed isn't related to our preferences, but the preferences of State. We are not individuals, but merely pieces in a body politic. As mere pieces of the body politic, we may be shuffled and used as the body directed, that is the State dictates. We either obey, or are punished for not following how the body demands. This may be in outright bans and prohibitions, or more subtle manners such as fines to 'nudge' our other behavior. Acts may be compulsory. (The State/Government actually doesn't 'decide' for it is nothing more than a collection of individuals who together have legal force behind them).

Can one govern another without rights-violations?—if so, in what context? There are two situations when one may govern another; 1) as an act of abdication in some degree, such as employment or any other agreement of voluntary authority-giving; 2) when dealing with our children. Neither one of these is absolute for in the voluntary giving of authority, it is limited to what is allowed and agreed upon; with children, it is the job of the parent to teach their child as he grows to become a self-sufficient individual interacting in society. The State, with the legal use of force uses compulsion. To keep its authority, it doesn't want self-sufficiency and growth, but wants dependency and as a slave master to keep its subjects in perpetual servitude.

There is not a possible blending of the two for the principles are mutually exclusive; we are either sovereign in our own life, or the State may rule our life. To allow _one_ non-right violating compromise is to violate the principle of self-sovereignty, thereby destroying the principle; only the standard that the compromise was to invoke remains – State-sovereignty.

Let us keep this in mind whenever we hear someone stating that we need the Government 'to do' things for us, guide us or otherwise tell us what is acceptable behavior, or in other words, when someone wants the Government to control, regulate and direct us. They ignorantly or maliciously seek to make us all mere subjects to their preferences that they project upon the State.

Posted by GDX at  2:38 PM

### Taking My Lemon to the Mechanic

[Originally Posted 02/12/2012]

I have this car that has numerous problems; it doesn't run smoothly and makes numerous noises. When I took it to the mechanic, he looked at the carburetor (my car is an old model) and said it needed to be replaced. Among other problems there were leaking gaskets, the radiator has a leak that required, like the oil, to be filled nearly daily. The transmission sticks and the brakes grind. The windows don't roll down or up, the dash lights don't all come on and the windshield wipers are stuck.

The mechanic, looking over the car, at the wear on the vehicle could tell I also drove it hard. And, I did. I pushed the RPMs into the yellow, if not the red frequently as I like to accelerate quickly, drive fast, and brake hard. With respect to routine maintenance, I didn't bother with it; keeping its gas tank full was good enough.

To get it fixed, the transmission will have to be wholly replaced, the pistons and rods have been damaged from low oil and they have to be replaced, the radiator, carburetor, numerous gaskets, hoses, and fittings all have to be replaced. As I didn't replace the brake pads routinely the whole brake assembly had to be replaced. Many parts will be needed, and it will take a long time to take the car apart, remove the bad parts, install the new parts and finally put the whole car together again.

My mechanic, being well-trained and experienced said he could fix my car; he could get it working practically as good as new... as long as I'm willing to pay for the repairs. Can you believe that? There was this other guy who came in to have his car looked over; my mechanic only charged him the regular fee for maintenance. Granted, this other guy's car was in good shape as he took care of it and only had the oil changed along with the air filter, but why should he not have to pay more? He could afford to pay more. My mechanic is being unreasonable and taking advantage of my needing to get my car fixed.

A confession: this isn't about a mechanic looking over a car, but a doctor looking over the health anyone's body.

Now, some will decry that there is no equivocating how one treats their car with the health of their body. And, they are mostly right, but this isn't about that comparison; this is about the mechanic/doctor and how _they_ are expected to act. Regardless of whether someone pushed their body hard, didn't take care of it and it is having problems, or just had 'bad luck' from anything that wasn't initiated by them, it doesn't take away from the fact that the doctor, like the mechanic, has to invest his resources (time, experience, money and goods) into fixing the body of the patient, instead of a car.

For example, to replace the aforementioned transmission, amongst the other parts will require the manufacture of those parts, the assembly of the parts (each required an investment of research and development, and education to first formulate), the packing, shipping and installation of those parts. If the parts are to a newer car that has much more technological advancements, there will also be the advanced training on how to install those parts – then there is the installation itself, along with all the time that will take. It doesn't matter if the breakdown came about how I drove it, or if it was a defect in the original manufacture; the mechanic has the same work to perform regardless of how mechanical faults came to be. With a body, for example in replacing a hip there is the manufacture of the part (and its first research and development), the collecting and transport of the rare materials to create the pieces, the manufacture of the machines that made those pieces and so on, along with all the other aspects that the mechanic must undertake to deal with automobiles... only with the much more expensive work that is medicine. For the doctor to treat the patient, it doesn't matter how the maladies came to be, only that it is and there are requirements for treatment.

With the fact that the doctor has to go through extensive training, and for specialists even more training in their respective fields, along with the huge expense that exists in the medical field with respect to the equipment used, the upkeep and the very buildings all is housed within or based from, the costs are a necessary part of the service. To make the cost the same regardless of the patient's in coming to use the service need (routine check-up or chemotherapy) is the surest way to make it so no one will be able to use the service for it will not be sustainable and shut-down. Every step in the process of treatment requires funding, and the funding is a necessary part for each step for without funding there is no way that the pieces could be shipped, created, researched, doctor to receive his training, _et al_.

To make everyone pay the same regardless of services needed is to deny the economic reality that there is a cost to everything, included medical services. A want to insure everyone not only doesn't help everyone but will in the long-run end with hurting even more people for the medical system will regress to the lowest remaining services, and those will be in short-supply – those services will still be reserved for those with the proper connections. No one can remove the cost of production; the way to make it more affordable is to let the market come in and let the other, necessary forces come in – how prices change from changing supply-and-demand. If the market is removed, then the available services will be reduced greatly. The masses will be out again with less of a chance on receiving treatment.

Posted by GDX at  8:45 PM

### How the Government can Ensure 'Fairness'

[Originally Posted 03/14/2012]

There are numerous calls from some in Washington and some in society for the Federal Government to ensure fairness for all those in society. They decry how a minority child born to a single minority mother in a poverty-stricken area is at birth at an unfair disadvantage when compared to a white child born in a white two-parent family in a well-to-do area. Those who decry that those infants were born into unfair situations are correct. Nature is not fair; however, nature is not unfair. There isn't a volitional force that looked at the combination of ovum and sperm to say 'upon my reason and feelings, this combination will be _X_ and this combination will be _Y_.' In nature and how things come about in nature is the epitome of the saying: it is what it is.

A thief may steal property; a tornado may destroy property. A thief has to continually take into account his life, his environment, the interactions between the two, along with where he sees he should direct himself; this is consciously or (generally) unconsciously done. The tornado doesn't take anything into account; it is just the result numerous forces that have no contemplation to them. It is wrong to conflate what Nature brings with what the State may bring. What is the difference?—it is the difference between what is chosen, against what just is. The thief chooses his actions. There is no will in Nature. Nature doesn't act in the way men do. Men act from will; nature acts in material causation without any will. Fairness may exist in the world of will; fairness doesn't exist in material causation. Only a hack will prevaricate the word 'fair' when comparing the fairness they want the State to provide against the fairness that Nature didn't provide.

The government, regardless of how much those in it may desire, is not like Nature. Government isn't just is; government is nothing more than a collection of individuals who have been entrusted with the legal use of force to ensure justice prevails in a society based on the laws therein. The laws are to reflect individual rights. If the government goes beyond the protection of individual rights (which are to pursue self-directed action) it is to giving things to the people (entitlements). Entitlements are 'rights' to that which someone else produced. The government doesn't have its own means, is not self-sustaining, and it needs to be funded – primarily through taxes. To go beyond allowing free actions to entitlements, government 'giving' can only be done by someone else first producing something that is then _taken_ by the government that has legal (not moral) use of force. After the government takes the product of one to give to another, the laws become unfair by definition – taking from one who invested their resources (time, energy, money and material goods) to be given to a third person who did not do the work for that given product.

How can governmental unfairness be implemented?—in two ways: in who is selected to have their resources taken; in who is selected to receive those resources. What is it that is unfair in such government actions?—it is the legal use of force to take from one to give to another. What must be done before the government may take from some in order to give to another?—there must be a legal division amongst people. Who can make and enforce such legal divisions?—only the government. The divisions possible are infinite. Common divisions are gender, income, ethnicity, sexual preferences, health/handicapped, immigrant status and on, and on; to add to the infinite combinations, groupings may be made such as physically (and/or not mentally) handicapped elderly, mentally (and/or not physically) handicapped Asians, Filipino homosexuals, single black mothers and on, and on where adjectives and nouns may be switched about easily. With so many divisions are made that the most quickly growing (i.e. shrinking group) minority group is that of the healthy individual. Who is going to provide for the rest?

Among our rights are the freedoms of speech and free association that are in the Constitution. The right to justly acquired property is not explicitly stated; it is implied for if one doesn't have a right to their justly acquired property, then they have no means of sustaining their life, or to pursue any other actions.

Financially, utilizing the right of speech and association (and property) is how we proceed in the businesses we frequent, banks we store our money in and if deciding to be charitable, what charities we want to donate to: voting with our feet, or wallet. For example, a family with a child that has Downs Syndrome may decide to donate their money to a charity that helps like families, or frequent a private clinic that has treatment programs the family sees as best for their child. The same freedom of speech and association happens for the patron going to a restaurant owned by a member of like ethnicity, or for one who uses organic & free-range goods, as a matter of convenience for being nearby, and all other various options that any individual may use in justifying their preference for _A_ over _B_.

At the individual level, it is an act of free speech and association with who we want to relate to, or not relate to in both business and professionally. This includes wise and foolish choices. Discrimination is good when properly applied; the one who wants to support a specific cause, team, family member does so by discriminating against the rest for not being the one they want. One who discriminates foolishly is to be given the same right to associate and speak as they choose, and suffer the necessary consequences. Nothing will remove stupidity as quickly as feeling the full force of the consequences of stupid decisions, such as the teams who refused to allow blacks to play losing to the teams that were integrated.

The government, using force, removes the free speech and association that are our rights; government officials pass and enforce laws that remove our decisions from us. Based on the whim of those in power, they take the resources taken by force and give those resources to a specific group. Through the force of a gun (don't pay taxes and refuse the fines and see what happens), the bureaucrat will give _your_ funds that you didn't willfully give, and hand them over to those you don't support. Where is the 'fairness' in that?

Even with this said, there is a way for the federal government to ensure fairness to the extent government can in its actions. It is obvious and being so, overlooked. The divisions that have been fostered from class-warfare, gender wars and all the various ethnic-hyphenated groups only seek to divide us, making us easier to rule for we don't target the cause of the divisions. The way to ensure fairness in government actions is to not look at those divisions.

If we allow the federal government to make one division, the principle that dividing us is acceptable is made and all groups will seek to be the exception. If we denied the federal government this division, then most of the problems that exist in contemporary society would be _gone_. Don't like 'welfare mothers,' or bank bailouts?—the federal government shouldn't be looking at income. Don't like different standards for minorities/whites/males?—the federal government shouldn't be looking at skin color or gender (the government is the only one that can force segregation). Lobbyists would exist, but eventually become extinct for they wouldn't be able to petition the government to act on the behalf of any one individual/group/industry over another. The problems with drug enforcement no longer exist for without rights-violations there is no crime to punish; the government couldn't punish someone using heroin, smoking marijuana any more than someone drinking a beer (alcohol), or a soda (caffeine); regardless of what was ingested, the actions outside consumption would be the punishable offences for violating another's rights, just as rights-violating acts are punishable when sober. Taxes would be the same percentage regardless of what was being purchased, or what one's income may be; the government couldn't say one was more sinful than another, or that one earned too much. The rich would still pay more, but not in percentage, and all would have 'skin in the game.' This lack of division would also apply to services, for the government shouldn't be looking at who needs and uses (if uses how much) those services (health care, contraception, food) over those who don't.

Charities help people more than government can. Charities are funded voluntarily. As being voluntarily funded, it was through individuals giving their resources they've earned and giving it to causes they believe in and want to donate. Charity is a gift those in society give its other members. It is to be recognized as a gift for when demanded and taken by the State, entitlements state that we are allowed to keep some of what we've earned, and the State will decide how much that may be. What is the fairness in having a third party deciding what you're allowed to keep from the work you put forth?

The federal government doesn't have any business separating us in society beyond what the census is for: have you been born?-are you still alive?-are you of legal majority (i.e. legally an adult)? How much anyone made, color of skin, gender, ethnicity and all other factors would be (as they should be) irrelevant to the government. What interest should the federal government have in any of these divisions?—in recognizing these divisions, the federal government codifies and buttresses the divisions as relevant. Is that a desirable result: legal division, of stating who is what type of an individual based on whatever collective-flavor-of-the-month is popular? If we denied the government that extra-constitutional liberty, then most all government abuses would be eliminated: no cronyism; no regulations protecting some/punishing others; no one who could see another as by a matter of existing, owing anything to anyone else.

Some will decry about some form of collective fairness: that some group suffered more by another and needs to be compensated. (as if fairness could be possible by lumping all individuals of a shared characteristic into the a group that a few members actually acted inappropriately; there is no fairness possible when crossing individual and group responsibility). But let us look at attempts at collective fairness, briefly. Some of us have proclivities and choose life paths that are more rewarding than others; think of the productive member of society who after years of training and hard work beyond a standard 40-hour work week, becomes a success and is targeted to have more taken from him in taxes to pay for the rest, and contrast that member with someone who works enough just to pay the bills, doesn't devote themselves to bettering themselves beyond that, and contrast both of the aforementioned to the thief who wants to steal the first two's property. They contribute, or even take away from society, differently. To have them treated equally would be unfair to society, for the one who works harder will not continue to do so as his efforts are not rewarded, and if the thief is not punished appropriately, he will continue to take from society. The lesser elements will thrive and the higher elements will starve. Is that fair for society as a whole?

If we allow the government to make such distinctions among us, and to try and help us, we not only not fix the issue of unfairness, but solidify it ever moreso in our lives for it is further codified in its dividing us amongst, and against each other. Absolute fairness is impossible. Miscommunications and abuses will still exist; they exist in the free market just as they do in government. The unfairness that may emerge in the free market may be more quickly remedied by the affected parties. With unfairness codified in the laws with divisions made amongst us, the law ensures we will be infighting, and the groups contesting against each other most will cycle so that we don't look at the cause of our divisions: the State. To remove codified and systematic unfairness, it would require systematically having those groups divided as such to not compete against each other and unify against what created them.

Finally, fair is such an easily prevaricated term, it gets tossed about in conversations without a _Stasis_ point, without an agreed upon definition. As such, where agreement is superficially made, there is still disagreement in principle. Worst of all, those who want to manipulate us use the word fair, intentionally prevaricating it, in order to push their agenda getting us stuck in their new system. With such problems following the word fair, it can be one of the worst four-letter words in the English language. It's too important, the fields where the term fair may be used. Let's make sure we know exactly what is being discussed when fair is used.

Posted by GDX at  10:51 PM

### A Fable: Avalanche

[Originally Posted 04/12/2012]

One day, as I was walking along through the woods, I came upon a beautiful enclave of magnificent trees. A gentle, sweet smelling breeze called out to me from those trees to walk among them, and so I did. I walked among those trees, and seeing their beauty, I stayed there awhile. Not much longer after that, the sweet smelling breeze called me forth again, deeper among the trees of the beautiful enclave. I walked deeper, and as I walked deeper, I saw that the trees were just the base of a grand mountain.

The sweet breeze called me to start climbing the mountain, and so I did. Every step that I took, I continued to see such beauty, that I took my time to enjoy the walk. I continued to climb, but slowly. After awhile again, the sweet breeze called upon me to climb higher, and so I did. Each time that breeze called me, it moved me from one place of exquisite beauty to an even more beautiful area.

This continued, the sweet breeze calling me to climb higher, and my following the breeze, seeing more and more beautiful things. Many times as I ascended, I thought I had reached the peak, but it was only a ledge. There was more beauty up higher, and I would climb higher, the sweet breeze calling. Often, I would stop for a moment to fully take in all that I saw, and had seen. To rest and enjoy where I was. Especially at those ledges that I thought were peaks.

Seeing the continuing splendor I was heading toward, that I had moved beyond, and that I was in at that time, I felt such grandeur in myself. Only good emotions flowed through me: euphoria, happiness, awe and reverence. That I was called there made me feel all the more godlike, in that such a grand place called me to be there. Higher and higher I climbed, with the sweet breeze calling me. Being there and belonging there filled me with such joy, had me so elated, that I did not want to stop until I reached the peak, until I was on the summit of this glorious mountain.

On this journey I went, until I reached the timberline. There, the sweet breeze stopped calling me to climb. It was beautiful at the timberline, but I saw that there was more to climb. There were even more glorious areas to reach. When I stepped past the timberline, though, another breeze came to me. It was not the sweet breeze, but a cold breeze.

The cold breeze told me not to climb any higher, but to enjoy where I was. Where I was, beautiful above all that I had known before, was not the summit where I felt that the most beautiful of all things would be. So, even with the cold breeze blowing on me, I climbed anyway. I climbed higher and higher.

There was great beauty in those snowy regions, but also a sense of the sacred. I thought, god that I was as I was called there, it was sacred and mine, so higher I climbed. The cold breeze continued to blow. With the brilliance of the snow, forged with my determination to only see the summit, I became snow-blind; only the summit could I see. The cold breeze grew colder and colder, but I pressed on, no longer enjoying where I was, but rushing forward.

Well up high in the mountain, far above the timberline, deep in the snowy regions, I came to where I could see the actual summit. Claiming it as mine, I advanced. But then, no breeze came to me to tell me to stop. The mountain, beautiful as it is, showed me the cruelty of violating it. The mountain shrugged, and the snow came rumbling down from the summit.

I stood, snow-blind by my own doing, right in the path of the falling snow; right in its path for it was for me. Quickly, I was caught up in the avalanche. It went cascading down the mountain, tossing me about in its cold, snowy grasp. The avalanche came to the timberline, and while being tossed about in the snow, I was bashed against those trees.

The avalanche came to those ledges I had passed, and I was bashed against those rocks. Hitting that which was before the avalanche, and being struck by that which was taken up and rolling with the avalanche, I continued down to the bottom of the mountain; not near where I first ascended, but in another spot where, with the destruction brought by the avalanche, anything beautiful was distant, but still visible, for beauty did not leave the mountain.

The snow subsided, and I laid in it. Beaten, bruised, bloodied and broken, I lay prostrate. In pain, though still mercifully numbed somewhat by the cold, I could still move; I did not know when the full pain would be felt. In pain, I got up. In pain, I looked up at the mountain, its summit, its high ledges, its timberline and its glorious trees. The aching in me condemned me 'Look at what you have done! Look at what you lost!' And, in pain, I hung my head in shame. But I looked back up.

Looking back up at the mountain, where I had been, and remembering that which I had experienced on the journey, I looked at that mountain, and though in pain, felt awe and gratitude. It had called me. It did let me climb and experience such wonders that I did not think were possible, or existed. I saw such beautiful things, that I thought I must have been dreaming, but better than dreams those moments were for they were while I was awake, actually experiencing them.

Thinking back to crossing the timberline, I realized that where I thought I was becoming the god of the mountain, I was actually a blessed soul invited to partake in the wonders the mountain had to offer; I was not the god of it. The mountain had its own soul, and in crossing the timberline, I had invaded its soul's lair, trying to claim it as my own, and the mountain showed me that would not be done. It had given me warnings, but I failed to read them, at first ignorantly, but later because of my own blind avarice.

It allowed me to live as a god at one level, but not as a god to be a master of it. I had found where godhood could be touched, but tried to take it with me. In pain, I tried to walk toward it again. Not the sweet breeze greeted me, but the cold breeze told me to leave; regardless of my contrition so great was my sin against it. I do not think it will call me again.

In pain, though still mercifully numb somewhat, and not knowing when the full pain would be felt, I turned to walk away. I limped along, and looked at my wounds, and could see I would have great scars; those would serve as reminders. And so I walked again, through the woods, while trying to heal myself. Always keeping my senses keen for the sweet breeze, should it ever call me again, but, doubting it will. I walk on, keeping aware, knowing how to enjoy the mountain appropriately, but not thinking I will return to it. I still keep my senses keen.

Like, King Midas, who through his avarice became a menace and a danger to that which he loved, so did I. But, as Midas was a fool, his curse was lifted and his damage was undone as he was forgiven by the gods. I, however, am not a fool, though I acted as one. Mine is the greater sin. Youthful naiveté is a partial reason for my error, but it does not excuse the trespass. I should have known better; with all the warnings, I should have read them instead of focusing beyond them to what I wanted.

As I committed the greater sin, so my punishment is not to be lifted; the damage not undone, suffering the penalty. Let this be an admonition to those who walk in the woods, and smell the sweet breeze calling them forward: do not go beyond where the trees and mountain call you. When the breeze blows cold: stop. It may call you forward to a higher place later, and it may not; enjoy where it does call you. Intruding into where it is not ready to accept you will get you thrown down and away, left to wander, beaten, bruised, bloodied and broken, but healing, still able to move, as not to repeat the same mistake, maybe with it again, or elsewhere.

Posted by GDX at 7:03 PM

### A Businessman Versus a Politician, and You

[Originally Posted 04/14/2012]

Both a businessman and a politician have that which they are trying to get us to 'buy.' A businessman has a literal product to buy – a good or service – and seeks to earn monetary commensuration for what was sold; a politician doesn't have a good or service to offer, but does offer legislation and wants to get your vote. Let's analogize; whether as a businessman or a politician, what they have to offer is to be pictured as a bowling ball.

A businessman being in the market, not only wants you to buy the bowling ball he offers, provides quality bowling balls in order for you to purchase the ones he offers. He'll let you take your new bowling ball as it is your property now, but he will also offer a bowling alley from where you'll be able to bowl, to keep you as a paying customer. To keep you as a customer, the businessman will maintain his alley so that the alleys themselves are in good repair, services in the building are good and that you continually get your bowling back in good shape as to want to keep bowling. A businessman wants not just a customer, but a returning customer. A returning customer does so because he is a happy customer. If the product fails to be what the customer wants, there will be another businessman offering something better, or he'll try and make better. Different businessmen sell varying types of bowling balls for their respective customers.

A politician wanting to pass legislation wants to create something new that will be static: a new law. A law once put into effect the law remains, until (more importantly _if_ ) it is repealed. A law now in effect, continues in the manner its nature requires regardless of the unintended consequences. The politician's bowling ball is a glossy one, designed to make it look appealing in order for you to vote for it. After he has enough votes and has been able to get his law passed, it is his standing atop a hill and throwing the bowling ball down a mountainside – the ball rolls, bounces and careens according to its necessary consequences. It exists and cannot be brought back without great effort of many more to get in front, stop and bring back the bowling ball (repealed). Otherwise, it is gone, hitting what is in its path, and damaging that which it strikes. If the law fails or has negative unintended consequences, the law still remains. The same politician will be working on new, and may have passed other, similar laws.

It is up to us in the market, in the audience to remember that these two: the businessman and the politician, though they both come with offers of something for us, what they offer are not the same. A businessman creates wealth that we may partake and exchange with; a politician creates a law that imposes limitations. The businessman is constantly part of the process of his product, the politician is not. The politician will have left the area when the damage his actions are felt, and he will be trying to create again that which he may initiate and leave others to feel the consequences. The businessman continually wants and needs to try and keep his customers; the politician just needed the vote for the moment, and after he throws the ball down the hill the ball exists and continues on without further effort from him and he can leave. A businessman can be held accountable for fraudulent claims about his product, and the customer may be held accountable for misuse of the product. A politician cannot be held accountable for the harm his law may have caused, and the law will still remain as a law to continue harming society.

Bad as it is for someone to release a bowling ball to let it cause damage, and not be accountable for it as the damage will be caused after he has left, there is something worse. What is worse is when the politician teams up with a businessman; that is the politician creating that which remains but also has to be maintained and only maintained through what the co-conspirator businessman is selling. By threat of punishment, that is government fine or imprisonment, the people have to pay for a product not necessarily even wanted, that the businessman doesn't have to maintain quality of good or service, have a low price as he'll sell anyway. Other businessmen may even be prevented from competing from the co-conspirator politician.

Let us recognize exactly who is doing what and not allow those who create the damage we feel to get away with it.

Posted by GDX at  10:36 AM

### Capitalism versus...

[Originally Posted 06/30/2012]

As far as a recognized political system, there are really just two choices: Capitalism or Statism. Capitalism may have the necessary redundancy of _laissez faire_ to mean no State control; Statism means State control in some form and to some degree whether it be private ownership with State dictates (Fascism), private ownership of property but State ownership of production (Socialism), State owning/controlling everything (Communism/Totalitarianism), and all nuances therein such as the newly bandied about private ownership and private production but public risk (Cronyism). In principle, it is this simple: Capitalism versus Statism.

Capitalism is not just a political system. What makes Capitalism what it is, is that it's a philosophical system first, and politics follow. The _laissez faire_ aspect of Capitalism means that people may choose to act (have the liberty) how they wish as long as it doesn't violate anyone else' rights. This leaves people free to accept the risk and reward for their choices. For good or bad, but with no rights violations individuals may act. Others may join in the risk and reward, but they do so by the acts of their own liberty. Capitalism is the liberty to act, and the responsibility for those actions.

To remove the liberty aspect, to mandate _any_ action changes the whole and it is no longer Capitalism that is being discussed, but some form of Statism. It is mutually exclusive as the principle is either we have liberty to direct our lives or we do not, regardless of degree.

It is not Capitalism to have State welfare, individual or corporate. It is not Capitalism to have mandated _anything_ , regardless of how good it may be for us as individuals or society. The banks need to be protected as 'they're too big to fail' is not Capitalism as when the State comes in and buys into the bank to save it, the system has blended Socialism with Cronyism. The same is true for when it is mandated that by existing we have to purchase health insurance, have to put certain warning labels on certain products, have 'sin' taxes applied to certain items, have to get permits and licenses to begin or work in a business among various other ways the State deems it can control our interactions.

The principle is clear: we are sovereign in our lives or we are not. This does not give us license to harm another as is a quickly bandied about retort to Capitalism; harming another violates their rights, their sovereign nature. Working at a State-level, we individuals get classified into convenient classes to be pitted against one another and with that classism, and with the State's approval of 'helping' us, it removes our sovereignty and makes us tools to sate someone else's wants. Where it is wrong to harm another on an individual level, Statism says the harm is part of the 'greater good' and it can take an individual's resources and liberty. If the principle is first not for the individual but that the individual may be dictated against for another, then society is a mass of those who may be commanded to serve another by threat of law: how is that for a greater good?

It is not for the greater good. If the base is not solidly built on individual rights, then the structure of any State is built on sand and it will just be a matter of time before it crumbles.

Posted by GDX at 1:22 PM

### Allowing our Amendments to be Picked Apart Piecemeal

[Originally Posted 07/24/2012]

As part of the expanding State there have been encroachments upon our rights - even ones formally listed in the Constitution and even among those in the Bill of Rights. A couple of examples include on public schools the creation of 'free speech' zones even though with the first Amendment the country is a free speech zone; the Patriot Act violating numerous Amendments, most notably removing due process; one more in particular is how gun control laws violate the second Amendment. I do not mean that there is a blanket policy being created (though there is that as well), what I'm referring to is how various municipalities are violating the second Amendment; this is not something that they are trying to do - it is something that has been done and is already law.

If we look at any Amendment in the Bill of Rights we'll see that there are not local separations from other Amendments. In Utah it is not required by law to be a Mormon violating the first Amendment; in Miami, FL it is not required by law to make jaywalkers have their feet bound and have to pay a $10,000 fine violating the eighth Amendment; the same is true for any place that by law they can ignore due process, put a defendant in double-jeopardy, restrict the press or force citizens to house soldiers as each of these violate various Amendments.

With our not allowing other Amendments to be broken down and accepted as some elected officials say we may enjoy our rights, why do we allow it with the second Amendment? The second Amendment has been broken down into various components on what is allowable in one part of the country against another part: is this a gun free zone? Where am I allowed to carry a concealed weapon? (there isn't a concealed restriction in the second Amendment, but they had pistols and jackets back then as well). Where (why) do I have to register my firearm?-what if I move to another state that has expensive registration fees?-a long and convoluted registration process and what happens if an issue arises during that time? Where is it a misdemeanor to carry a weapon if it is loaded, but allowable if it is unloaded? (what is the point of carrying a firearm if it is unloaded?) What types of guns are allowable at all?

Each of the aforementioned, and numerous other restrictions, is a way that the second Amendment has been made piecemeal and depending on what state or even what city you are in, a potential violation of the law. Just by carrying a loaded firearm for your defense (as protected by the second Amendment), depending on where you are or go to, that act could be punishable by prison or jail time and fines.

What is the consequence of all of this?-that those citizens who try and be law-abiding have more ways that they have to be concerned about violating, thereby making it nearly impossible to actually follow as the laws vary so much depending on where one is, and at a given time for the local laws may change (from time to time and place to place). Those who are intent on using their firearms to violate another's rights already are set to violate the law, so making it illegal that they are carrying a loaded weapon means little to them as they are going to commit a greater violation anyway. But, the ones who try and be law-abiding are hamstringing themselves in how they carry their firearm (if they're allowed at all) and are just making it so they have less of a chance to defend themselves. If someone standing in front of you wants to kill you and has their firearm ready, but yours is in an approved, locked security case as well as unloaded, you'll be dead well before you'd have a chance at defending yourself.

Let's stop allowing this division of our second Amendment right. It is every bit as important to not allow these restrictions as it is to not allow any area to deny the political opinions of liberals/conservatives/libertarians. Our second Amendment right protects us from anything ranging from a dangerous animal, a criminal or a tyrant who wants to impose restrictions on other Amendments.

Posted by GDX at  7:57 PM

### Cult of (Presidential) Personality

[Originally posted 10/01/2012]

What is the President of the United States supposed to be?

Is he (or she for when it happens) to be someone relatable? Is he to be someone you can have a laugh, or beer with? Is the President someone whom after you've met, leaves with the feeling of, as Joseph Campbell said "good fellow well met"?

We are bombarded with images of a smiling face responding to numerous questions, nominees stating what their 'guilty pleasures' are, appearing on network shows to joke and be 'eye candy', and of course shaking hands and kissing babies. With all of this, it seems the President should be the good fellow well met.

Is that what the President _should_ be?

The President of the United States is first and foremost the head of the executive branch of the government; the rest of the triumvirate includes the judiciary with the court, and the legislative with the congress. The President is not to be the one passing laws, or ruling on laws, but to be the chief enforcer of the laws.

This brings us to: what are the laws? As we have 'progressed' through the decades, there are numerous laws - thousands of pages - and in those pages, laws contradict, overlap and make exceptions. With that, we must look at the supreme law of the land, the Constitution. For example, where laws have been passed that may otherwise restrict free speech, we have _Cohen V. California_ : Cohen was arrested for 'disturbing the peace' by wearing a shirt stating 'Fuck the Draft'. Just over a word, Supreme Court Justice Harlan wisely observed in the court's opinion "This case may seem at first blush too inconsequential to find its way into our books, but the issue it presents is of no small constitutional significance."

The Constitution was held as the supreme law of the land - that it should be held as - and Cohen's conviction was reversed. There have been times of other violations and those violations come to the highest court to be ruled upon to check the constitutionality of those laws, policies and rulings. Therefore, the President as the chief enforcer of the country has his first fealty toward the Constitution - it's in the oath of office when he is sworn in.

There is a difference between the power delegated to the President in the Constitution, and that which has become allowable in expanding precedent in actions taken by previous Presidents - and the Congress. Congress passed the Patriot Act and NDAA, both of which violate Constitutional rights, but have not been heard by the Supreme Court (outside of one statute deemed 'anti-terrorism'). President Obama acted as jury and executioner with the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (Anwar's teenage son), both of whom were American citizens and had their rights violated.

Constitutional rights of due process are not to protect the guilty, for if guilty and judged as such they will be punished as judged; constitutional rights are to protect everyone from being falsely convicted. In a trial, we do not just let the prosecutor provide his evidence and not let the defense have their voice: why would we allow the power of judging to one who is pulling a trigger at the same time?

The President is in essence a magnified and glorified National Sheriff, charged with upholding the laws of the land, and acting as the legal representative of the country. He is to be judicious and fair in following the laws passed, but most importantly upholding the base the laws come from, being the Constitution, and from that Natural Law.

Does how much he can smile, or how many babies he can kiss have anything to do with how he will act in the role of President instead of appeaser to the masses to get elected? Such superficialities may help get him elected, but they won't help him in the role of being President. Do you want someone you can have a laugh or a beer with in the role, or should the President be more than that and be the chief enforcer of laws?-what is more valuable?

The carefully groomed and manicured front-runner nominees of Obama and Romney... how different are they? Both want(ed) NDAA, the Patriot Act, auto bailouts, TARP, CISPA, healthcare mandates, the drug war, expanded military interventionism overseas, among various other shared interests. What is the substantive difference between these two? In the media, the difference is their personality: though both are rich, Romney is lambasted as out-of-touch and rich, while Obama is the likeable professor-type, but aloof. However, they both make their rounds on television, their jokes, public contact eating where they can be seen to be 'one of us' and again, shaking hands and kissing babies.

According to the left/right media, Obama claims he'll help the poor more, while Romney will help 'the job creators' more; in either case, it's more of the government getting into the market - remember, both embraced the bailouts and other programs so they're not that different. The media skips the similarities, focusing on how they each 'look' presidential. Joseph Campbell advised it's a lessening of the role of the President to be the good fellow well met.

Their presidential look is a Potemkin village; in the role to uphold the highest law of the land, they both embrace policies and laws that violate the Constitution.

It is up to us as citizens to elect someone that isn't just 'likeable', but is someone ready for the role; the role not to be a cheerleader, not to be someone's friend, but to be the chief enforcer of the supreme law of the United States. This is true not just for the President, but also for those trying to get into Congress. We must rise above the tricks and manipulations the politicians and their handlers try to use, and ensure the elected officials follow the Constitution. If we do not follow the Constitution and allow them to overlook it as well, then we'll have nothing to base our defense upon when we may be looked upon as the 'bad guy' and be scapegoated, having our property or even our lives taken - we will be Constitutionally insignificant, for the Constitution will be.

Posted by GDX at  2:22 PM

### Advice to Gary Johnson

[Originally posted 10/01/2012]

If you're not invited to participate in the debates, crash them. By that, I mean go where the debates are being held - make sure to have TV/news crews with you (they'd enjoy a jab at their competition) and if you're turned away, lambast how complicit the moderator/network of the debate is as part of the corrupted election process as you are another option in all States. If the debate host gives in, you're in the debate; if the host doesn't let you in, it will be broadcast and gain attention from other outlets on the R/D debate protectionism, making Obama and Romney look weaker.

Just my thought.

Posted by GDX at 2:39 PM

### On being 'sensitive'

[Originally posted 10/03/2012]

As Lenny Bruce advised "Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government." We can replace the government with any authority figure who wants to control our speech, and therefore our thought; whether that authority is Islamic, Christian, the Politically Correct, or anything else; the what they are is not as important as what they are trying to do - control others - that is the important part. Fuck those who want to control our words and thoughts.

Posted by GDX at 11:42 AM

### The Lion that Allowed Itself to be Devoured by a Rat

[Originally posted 10/04/2012]

There is a fable that is increasingly relevant today: the mighty lion that was devoured by a rat.

The lion knew itself to be big and powerful, strong and mighty. It knew from its strength that it could trample, crush and devour its enemies. When a lowly rat came up to the lion, it was not frightened; the lion saw the rat of such little consequence and ignored it. The rat bit the lion, but with the lion's fur and mass, it was more amused than frightened or concerned. As the rat tried to nibble, the lion confident in its strength to always protect itself went to sleep.

However, as the lion slept, the rat continued to nibble; canyons are not created quickly, but by the slow wear of running water. The rat nibbled past the protective fur and began to burrow inside the lion. The lion awoke surprised its strength didn't protect it. Time was short for the rat burrowed quickly, but it was painful to try and reach in and get the rat. The lion tried to talk the rat out, but whatever words were used, the rat continued to burrow. Eventually the rat went past where even if the lion tried to reach in and pull the rat out it couldn't be reached.

The rat continued to burrow to the lion's heart, and killed the lion; it then ate the lion from the inside.

Collectively, the lion is America.

Overly confident in our strength, we have opened ourselves to threats and haven't done much of anything to protect ourselves. This is true on multiple levels, but most damaging in our interventionism, on being 'sensitive' and clamping down on our own expression, and in our politics. These are greatly intertwined.

The death knell of the lion is our participation (or lack thereof) in politics and by extension, elections. The Federal Election Commission statistics show election participation ranges from mid-30s (non-presidential election years) to up to around 60% (presidential election years).

The rat is the tyranny that emerges from inaction; this is the same regardless of the issue: crackdown on free speech as not to offend (someone or State), limiting the size of drink you can purchase, the drug war, extra-congressional declarations of war, and the like. From this, we end up with a presidential election between two front-runners getting the media coverage, but have little substantive differences and those are not highlighted.

With how many vote for one of the two front-runners because those are the only seen two choices available, and with how many do not vote at all, imagine the change that could happen if we are proactive and insist upon more than just the two candidates.

It is up to us to demand the media to stop assisting the rats from devouring us and to stop the politicians' own tyrannical actions and burdening debt for there will come a point where we cannot stop the burrowing and our hearts will be devoured and the lion will be dead - we are the lion.

Posted by GDX at  4:07 PM

### The Fallacy of the Capitalist Dragon

[Originally posted 10/15/2012]

An often repeated villain throughout folklore and myth is the dragon. The dragon is a giant and ferocious beast; it devours the innocent; it lays waste to the landscape; it tries to slay the hero; and the dragon hoards vast treasures of bountiful precious jewels and gold - not to mention the beautiful virgin.

With a quick examination of those characteristics, some of them are what we could say 'natural' to any large predator: a grizzly bear can be a giant and ferocious beast that has a voracious appetite and will fight those who come into its territory - just like any wild animal. On a small-scale, even a field mouse can be a terror to organisms comparatively smaller to it as humans are to a grizzly bear. Wild animals act as wild animals.

This leaves us with the hoarding aspect of the dragon. Why would a dragon hoard?-and, especially why would it hoard treasure and virgins? The dragon is not going to shop anywhere and is not going to attempt seduction. There is no reason for the dragon to hoard the 'boons' it has.

As with any myth or fairy tale, the characters and items are all metaphors; the dragon is analogous to ideas or people in real life. Let us look at the dragon.

What is it in the real world that gets ascribed as the victimizer, the devourer, the destroyer and the hoarder?-the rich. They (individuals and businesses that are run by individuals) are the ones that need to have giant leashes placed upon them: leashes of regulations, licenses, taxes, quotas and such. It is claimed that these leashes are needed for if the dragon was not restricted with them, the dragon would lay waste, consuming, destroying and hoarding without end. There would be a Chernobyl and Deep Horizon oil spill happening regularly; the dragon would also be keeping the wealth, leaving the rest to starve.

Is that what the rich do? Granted, there will be some who may \- statistically, out of any group there are going to be those with malevolent intentions; however, that is not a necessary and sufficient characteristic of being rich. Parasites exist in all classes. What do the rich do?

(The rich, recently are called the millionaires, but that is a misnomer as the new calls for fairness and expanded rules begins at $250k earnings a year. This 'rich' is only in respect to income, not assets already held.)

First, let us distinguish between those who create work against those who create wealth: the one who digs a hole and fills it back in against the one who creates a good for sale.

Those who earn money do so by offering something to be sold. What is this thing?-something that needed to be produced. Produced how?-by combining resources, labor and expertise (at a minimum) into the given good. What is does that mean?-through the interaction of individuals who choose (choice is a key component) to interact, they create something through which they each benefit: the one with the resources gets paid for the resources; the worker gets paid for the labor; the entrepreneur gets paid for getting the whole thing together.

This is true with a good being sold, or for resources to be combined with other resources to manufacture later goods - components need to be built before goods can be made from them, or for services. It requires wealth to begin and wealth to maintain - maintaining meaning continuous interaction and therefore productive work to be performed by each party.

Does that sound like a dragon hoarding?

To add to the aforementioned, there are others who are also in the various fields of enterprise. Those others may make their own and wholly different good, or create a similar good to compete. With a whole new good, there is more to be had, and with a competing good there will be more pressure to invest wealth into production to make things more efficiently or of a higher quality so they can remain in business - still more for society.

Some who do not succeed, or work in fields no longer needed may be out of work, but with production and people being open to create the new, those newly unemployed can find work elsewhere: e.g. we do not have a high demand for impact typewriter parts or service, but we do have a demand for those who can work on computers.

With all of this, the rich do not hoard. Hoarding is taking what one has and not using it, not reinvesting it - the dragon only keeping treasure in its lair. The rich do not do that.

The aforementioned were references to businesses, but even a rich individual who puts the money in a bank is not hoarding it: it goes in a bank to earn interest. Why does it earn interest in a bank?-because the bank uses the money in loans. Banks put money to work. The money in banks goes to loans for those who need help for anything ranging from purchasing a motorcycle to capital for starting a new business. If the bank did not have the money placed in it, then it could not offer the loans and people would not be able to purchase the motorcycle or begin their business.

The Capitalist Dragon does not hoard, but makes sure its treasure is utilized.

Every dragon has its nemesis, and in the tales that is the noble hero. We have an equivalent; however, as the dragon is not the same hoarder in the lore, neither is the hero so noble.

The 'hero' that wants to slay or control the Capitalist Dragon is the government. That government hero does not see, or rather does not care the wealth that is 'hoarded' is not actually being hoarded, but is being put to use.

Only what can be seen is what is important to the government hero; what cannot be seen is not relevant - the more distant a thing becomes, the less it directly affects the hero and those who praise him (for reelection); the more the long-term consequences will be ignored. There is only the now: look at the treasure the dragon has - now let's take it, for it has too much. The resulting harm to the interactions following taking the treasure by force is irrelevant, for it is a distant harm: the important thing is happy people dividing the spoils now.

The ways of taking the dragon's treasure include regulations, licenses, taxes and the like. Each of these is a chain around the neck of the dragon, placed upon it by the threat of a sword. These take from the dragon's treasure for now it has to spend its treasure on things not related to the actual production of a good, but to sate the government hero and those who praise him.

There are cries that if the government hero did not at least chain the dragon, that the dragon would lay waste to the people and the environment. That is untrue: the only thing needed is to enforce property rights, and outside of that it is not anybody's business. If there was actual harm, then with equal treatment of the law compensation could be made or activities halted.

Businesses would pay as little as they could? Do not workers try and get as much as they can? The free market allows people to exchange freely; if they can pay more (most jobs start above minimum wage), then businesses will pay more for a better worker. And the one who is just starting a business, but cannot afford what the government hero said should be the minimum for employee wages, can still hire but for less - he is able to offer employment, and the employee is earning something where he was earning nothing beforehand, and gaining experience to earn more later.

The same is true for the rich who puts the money in a bank; in the bank, the money is used for productive purposes; in the government hero's coffers, the money goes to sate bureaucracy where the money is not productive. For the sake of creating work, one can be paid to dig a hold, and fill it back up; there is work, but not production. Should the government hero's coffers actually produce anything it is first by the use of force taking it from where it already was productive and now first sating a bureaucracy before the remainder can be put to work.

There is a middleman between the Capitalist Dragon and the government hero. This middleman is not to be confused with a moral middle-ground (there is no moral middle-ground), but merely as a go-between for pragmatic utility: gremlins. Gremlins work in human society, but they do not create things - they destroy them. However, at one time they were seen as beneficial. With the illusion of beneficence, gremlins convince the people who praise the government hero and the government hero himself that chaining the dragon will bring prosperity.

The gremlins create bureaucracy of the government hero, and corporatism for him and fellow gremlins; they are never sated, never get enough of the dragon's treasure. As parasites, they grow and continue to do so, feeding off the host, continuing to eat until they devour the dragon, and are left with nothing.

What are we left with? The Capitalist Dragon does not hoard, but on the contrary, it produces. There are monsters. Those monsters are the government heroes who come in with their swords and chains to enslave the dragon or take its wealth, and the gremlins who act as humanity's friend, but work toward humanity's destruction.

Posted by GDX at  10:08 PM

### Perspective on an Advanced Idea: Foreign Policy and Blowback

[Originally posted 10/22/2012]

An often repeated saying on why we're being attacked is: they hate us for our freedom. Let us look at that, analogously.

In a neighborhood there are families with different beliefs and cultural norms: some families may deny the women in their households the options of self-determination, while other families allow it; some families state there are topics forbidden to talk about, while others freely talk about anything. There are of course many other aspects where families may disagree with one another. Disagreements may emerge, but if those disagreements are only verbal there is not actual violence between the families, regardless of the animosity.

Not all cultures are equal, and the more liberty a culture has, the better it is enabling each individual to pursue the highest human potential and from that individual achievement, benefit the rest as a consequence. This will be a source for continuing debate amongst the families, but again as long as words are used, there are no acts of violence.

Let's get beyond disagreement in words: say there was a troublesome raccoon in the neighbor's yard and we our sent our 'family pet', a guard dog out from our yard to get the raccoon and in doing so the dog injured the neighbor's children, killed their cat and tore up their yard. Our neighbors would be upset. If our response to their being upset was simply dismissing injured child, dead cat and destroyed property as collateral damage since the dog was trying to kill a raccoon that was hiding in a bush on their property - that'd be little comfort to them. We'll give our neighbors an extreme sense of patience and say though they were angry, they 'understood' our goal and asked us to be more careful and control our dog. However, after getting the one raccoon we saw another raccoon and we advised the neighbor that we'll keep sending our dog over to try and get the 'new' raccoon - a 'war on raccoons' and in that war our dog hurt more of their children, killed more of their pets and tore up their property.

Let's also add some other 'neighborly' actions such as propping up more distant neighbors around the neighbor with the raccoon; these distant neighbors try and beat the one with the raccoon into submission. Our last 'neighborly' action is trying to get them to submit to our will directly by sabotaging their property, denying them electricity and water.

We are no longer having a verbal disagreement with our neighbor, but are actually destroying their property and putting their family at risk.

Let's get out of the analogy and put this into perspective.

Just from drone strikes in Pakistan the civilian death count in the past few years range from near 500 to near 2,000 (US and Pakistani reported stats); injuries of course are much higher; men, women and children are among the victims with civilian deaths accounting from 50-80% (US and Pakistani reported stats). Other areas being targeted by drone strikes include Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan and Somalia.

As far as propping up one neighbor to rule over another, there was Mubarak being assisted in his rule in Egypt, as well as the Iranian Shah resulting in the oppression of the people of those respective countries. Sanctions are cutting off the resources to the family, i.e. country.

If our neighbor was sending their dog into our yard and it killed our pets, harmed our children and tore up our property, would we be upset? Beyond the analogy, this isn't about pets being killed - it's about men, women and children being killed. We were appropriately angry with thousands of Americans being killed; is it reasonable to think that those in another country are not angry with hundreds, or even thousands of their people being killed? Would the killing of those civilians, and especially children, spur the people in those countries to fight back?

How about if they were propping up someone else who tried to overthrow us, or cutoff our ability to get our resources?-sanctions upon us. This has been done, or is being done to them - would that spur them to fight back?

If war is needed, we have a process for it and it isn't at the whim of an individual politician who wants to get re-elected, but from the deliberation and vote of the entire Congress to approve war with a specific enemy, plan of action and exit plan - not the amorphous, never-ending 'war on terror'. Afterward, the war is to be swiftly fought to not keep our soldiers in harm's way, to not continually bolster the resolution against them and not place great war costs on the taxpayers.

This plan of drone strikes (as an extension of the 'war on terror') is unconstitutional and a long-term action. The Times Square bomber was foiled, as was the 'underwear' bomber in the plane; however, imagine if they succeeded and we had similar attacks periodically for years. How would we feel and how would we respond? We'd steel our resolve against, and then want to attack those who were perpetrating those attacks. It wouldn't be about the beliefs of those attacking us - whether or not they embraced freedom or oppression - it would be about their attacking us, killing our citizens.

Our presence is unneeded all across the planet, does not benefit us and our actions of 'spreading democracy' do not help but actually harm our cause. If we want to assist in the spread of liberty, it is by example for to force liberty defeats the purpose; liberty cannot be forced, but embraced. Forced liberty is an oxymoron.

Through peaceful interactions, our example will spur the people to assert their own self-determination and get rid of the oppression forced upon them. Malala Yousufzai is an example of the individual standing against oppression as she is an adolescent standing against a theocracy denying her ability to get educated; she was attacked, shot twice for her opposition, but she survived. The way the people in her country are embracing her and condemning her attackers shows how the people can direct themselves \- if they only have the courage and example. Imagine if Malala was killed by a drone strike; her spark trying to illuminate the darkness of theocratic oppression would be out, while her blood would bolster the people against those controlling the drones that killed her.

If our message of peace and liberty comes repeatedly with a bomb killing civilians, then there is not a message of peace and liberty, but a message of oppression and death.

Posted by GDX at  4:18 PM

### Metaphysics (a Sonnet in _The Gospel of Reason_ )

[Originally posted 01/03/2013]

Exactly why, does he, mankind, exist?

From where did life, and order, formulate?

And, how – without a cause, nothing to list;

Did all the Universe come from that state?

Is Nature fated? – did it have to be?

No plans, no script, just forces manifest;

Not cruel, nor mean, with no affinity.

Objective rules are learned from interest.

The other choice: a primal Creator;

The being living in vacuity.

But how did He, with nothingness before;

Beget the stars, all else? – His nascency?

The answer, Nature versus God, sublime;

There is no doubt that one has been all time.

Posted by GDX at  9:00 AM

### On Gun Control

[Originally posted 01/08/2013]

What is the debate about?-some say different things: who is allowed to use deadly force, the individual or the State?-getting guns out of society, and protecting the innocent (especially children)?-the depth of control allowed to the people by the State in what weapons they may have?-other aspects of gun control?

Regardless of any of the questions, there are two facts of identity to be considered: 1) any removing of a firearm from an individual is the beginning of removing his ability to defend himself; 2) that banning (or controlling) firearms is a legalism and will not actually prevent their [mis]use. The two points are also related, but come from different angles.

On point one, who will be harmed by such control? The one who would be harmed by such a law of gun control is the one who would obey such a law. Harm comes directly in that individual is letting a third party (a legislature) limit the means that the individual may use in self-defense; harm comes indirectly for to violate the law to defend himself, he has violated the law and has to be concerned about being criminally charged.

For self-defense, proponents of gun control say call the police - this follows the assumptions of one having the means to call, and that the police will be present to help. Problems with these assumptions entail further assumptions that one has a cell phone, has a strong signal and isn't having that signal interfered with, the battery is not dead, and one has the physical capability to make the call _and_ complete it - isn't being interfered with by the one making the 911 call necessary, along with the assumption that the police will be able to arrive and assist before greater harm is caused by the one who is necessitating the call.

On point two, it is the assumption that control will prevent criminals from using firearms and accidents from happening. Firstly, what makes a criminal a criminal?-he is breaking the law. So, with that would passing another law suddenly make it so he will become a law-abiding citizen?-no. Expanding the reach of the law into areas where it goes beyond 'no victim, no crime' into banning firearms then places honest individuals in Bastiat's quandary: what to do when moral law conflicts with legislative law? To be law-abiding when guns are banned is to make one more vulnerable; to own (for protection) a firearm that was banned is to break the law. It places on an equal legal level the parent wanting to protect the family with the robber who would harm them; it places the woman who wants to protect herself on the same legal level of the rapist who wants to violate her.

Gun control proponents then decry that if all guns were banned, then criminals would not even be able to have those weapons to be used in crimes. That is false, and the list of examples is long: colossal failures in prohibition and the war on drugs, to the less vast, but nonetheless real as in nearly totally controlled environments [prisons], inmates can still get drugs, and just like the rest of society, contraband exists everywhere (depending on location) from drugs, to music, to books and more. Contraband always finds its way for there is desire and laws cannot prevent desire.

With respect to accidents: the nature of an accident is that it is an unintended, rare occurrence. There is no law that can prevent the accidental. Laws may set up punishments for the consequences of accidents, but it can no more prevent accidents than it can prevent people from intentionally getting contraband. (More on this later).

The nature of a weapon is to more efficiently use force against an opponent; this is the same principle whether the opponent is an individual or a collective - even the State. Without a weapon, a an average-sized woman targeted by two powerful rapists in a van is nearly helpless; with a firearm (handgun) she has a great chance of negating, and overcoming her would-be rapists' physical might. Without a weapon, the merchant who is being mobbed by dozens, is nearly helpless to the mob; with a firearm ('assault' rifle), that merchant has a chance of keeping the mob at bay. Without weapons, the people who wish to be free, have to settle for what those who lead the State may allow; with weapons, the people can tell the State what its power is to be extended to, and not beyond.

The aforementioned is the difference between Linda Smith (pseudonym for an Oklahoma woman who killed one and wounded another would-be rapist), and being Shirley Lynette Ledford (raped, tortured and murdered by two men); the difference between gangs or mobs looting and leaving some Indian families destitute, and the Korean merchants who held off the mob during the L.A. Riots; the difference between the Jews in the ghettos before being led to the camps, and those following the Bielski brothers.

Having a firearm doesn't guarantee success, but it gives the would-be victim a fighting chance of not becoming a victim. Like the first examples, without means of defense one is more easily victimized; with a means of defense, one can fight back and have a chance at not being a victim.

The issue about firearms comes down to use, and efforts to prevent improper usage. Let's extend this principle of controlling things since those things may be misused. Automobiles may kill thousands a year; some deaths can be attributed to intentional vehicular homicide, but others were accidental. With that, shall we place a new ban on how fast people can drive, how fast manufacturers can create a vehicle to go, and have extensive checks on who can own and operate a vehicle? Some people are obese from overeating, shall we place bans on what everyone can eat, and monitor everyone's eating habits? More people are murdered yearly by silent weapons (clubs, bats, hammers, knives, etc) than are killed by firearms; shall we have background checks at hardware and sports stores? About the children, shall we extend State monitoring to everyone's lives, as well as authorize who can be a parent and approve parenting styles, to protect the children?

Some will decry: but guns sole purpose is to kill something!

My response to that is: no, guns sole purpose is to shoot. But, even if it was to kill... so?

The purpose of a knife is to cut, it is up to the wielder on if, or how it cuts; the purpose of a hammer is to hammer, it is up to the wielder on what gets hammered; the purpose of a firearm is to shoot something, it is up to the wielder whether that is a competitive target, live game or a human being - a human being can be a target by both a victimizer and a victim, that is a firearm can be used as an assault weapon to violate another's rights, or defend those rights. This is for when the victimizer is an individual, or a collective - like the State.

There is to way around the issue of gun control and its corollaries; it leaves those who want to be law-abiding with less defense, and has the false assumption that banning will prevent criminals from getting guns. Combine those two points and you will have citizens who are less able to defend themselves against those who know that their prey lacks teeth and claws - whether the aggressor is an individual or the State.

Posted by GDX at 4:23 PM

### Actually Paying the National Debt

[Originally posted 02/04/2013]

Numbers never lie, but they can be used to misrepresent. Even if with a clear definition, numbers may be unfathomable: how big (or small) is a quark?-how long (or short) is a unit of Planck time? How could one actually write out the numbers in a googolplex?

On a more practical level for most people, let us look at money and more specifically imagine actually setting a schedule to pay off the national debt (as it stands now) at a mere 3% interest rate, to be paid off in 30 years:

$16,500,000,000,000 debt

$8,543,280,000,000 total interest

$25,043,280,000,000 total paid

$69,565,000,000 in 360 monthly payments

There is a point when numbers can become so large, that they no longer seem real. Picture an egg, and it is an easy task. Now picture two eggs, and it is still an easy task. Continue to add eggs so there are three, four, five, a dozen - even a dozen can be pictured without too much difficulty for we're used to a dozen as a marketable, and a grouped amount even though it is composed of 12 units.

The normal amount that we humans can track in individual units is 7 +/-2. We're still physical entities (organisms), and have necessary biological and cognitive limitations. This affects man and animal, for even crows have been found to be able to count to three.

What happens when what we're supposed to be paying attention to goes beyond those seven individual units, or goes beyond such understandable groups?-how many measure in Plancks?

Try and picture 1,651 individual eggs, or picture the units that compose a million, and then how to transport them. Those individual units cannot be visualized; they can be theoretically understood, but not seen. (Theoretically here to simply mean though a definition may be clear, the actual amount may be different, such as an operational definition of 1,651 eggs for a shipment may be definite, but counting them to fill that definition \- how many were missed, double-counted or broken may not be considered and reflect the actual amount).

How much space do 1,651 eggs fill?-how much do they weigh?-how can that mass be transported? It's possible for one who deals with eggs en masse to be able to answer those questions and use logistics to ship the eggs about, while minimizing loss. For those who don't have such experience with eggs, we can only guess. And that is with only 1,651 eggs - how would we deal with a million eggs?-what about more than a million eggs?

Let us now change the focus from eggs to something that affects us all: money. Going to a fast food restaurant to use a dollar to buy something, and we can easily see the single dollar and the item we are buying. If we go to the store to buy a book, we can see the number of bills exchanging hands, though it is becoming more difficult to visualize individual bills \- that's why we have other denominations and not just singles, like in the way we have a dozen for eggs. As we continue to get larger purchases, the individual units of money are lost and we return to theoretical units that we do not count individually for we know what they represent: hundreds, thousands etc. (Theoretically, money is supposed to represent a stable value).

To further confound things, we don't just buy eggs, but also kitchen furnishings to store the eggs and cook them, living and dining room furniture to eat and relax in, bedroom furniture to sleep in, clothes to wear, cars to drive about, a continuous supply of food to sustain ourselves and families, and we pay bills to keep water and electricity, among the multitudinous factors that require money that we continue to need to earn to pay for things.

Is each and every individual unit present and accounted for? If you were good enough to count what you touched (not skipping or double-counting), what about those who also have an effect, whether a spouse, other family member or business partner?-can the same be said for every single unit they touched?-what about when you or them are rushed, sick or are multitasking?

Now, let us look at earning and more in particular spending - not just our family, but the country as a whole. While we consider earning and spending, let us keep in mind the time and scope: decades, and across millions of people (billions if we consider foreign entanglements). Earning is part of the issue, but the greater issue is the spending; that is why we have a debt - we (we here referring to the State) spend more than we take in.

(The [im]morality of State actions is a valid concern, for another article).

The issue is then further compounded by blending the duration with the millions affected as well as political promises being offered that increases the amount of spending from an undefined spigot. Some of the spending is legitimate and according to what the State should be doing, and some of it is not legitimate; the difference between national defense and nation-building or policing the world. Some of the spending on some people is proper, and some of it isn't; the difference between giving people back their money that was taken (a process that needs to be stopped, such as returning one's income tax) and welfare (corporate or individual).

Let us return to the first numbers: a snapshot of the debt under the fanciful idea that the debt would not increase. Again, at the improbable 3% interest rate with the goal of actually paying off the debt over 30 years (like a home loan), the results would be:

$16,500,000,000,000 as an initial loan (debt)

$8,543,280,000,000 total interest charged on the loan

$25,043,280,000,000 total paid of principle and interest

$69,565,000,000 each month for a total of 360 monthly payments

If the percentage rate increased, say to 6%, the results would be:

$19,113,301,000,000 total interest charged on the loan

$35,613,301,000,000 total paid of principle and interest

$98,926,000,000 each month for a total of 360 monthly payments

These numbers are TRILLIONS of dollars in loans and interest paid, with approaching $100 BILLION paid monthly. This is if the debt doesn't increase from the current $16.5 trillion that it is, and doesn't include unfunded liabilities that raise the total debt over $100 TRILLION.

We now return to the numbers deception - the seemingly 'unreal' numbers that have very real consequences. The deception happens in two ways: 1) by dismissing the amount that a thing starts out as, or how much a thing increases, such as the top income tax rate when the income tax was created, was 7% and is now in the 30s; 2) by dealing with numbers so large that people will not be able to fully comprehend the amounts, such as the thousands of pages of tax code and the numerous exceptions and qualifications for those exceptions. If anyone does have a concern, they themselves can be disregarded through ad hominem for having those concerns about the spending when the costs tomorrow are to be ignored in favor of gains today - if one isn't for Obamacare it's because they 'want people to suffer.'

There is no way to pay the debt. If it was just $16.5 trillion now, and we would not increase it, we would pay between $25 & $35 trillion. The debt limit has been raised before, and there are talks about raising it again. This is all on top of the unfunded liabilities, and continued political promises of more.

The debt amount isn't the only thing to consider, for the debt grew to what it has become for a reason. From the 'small' amounts that some pay, to the small amounts that everyone expects; from the small-scale actions of repressing a dictator at one area, to bolstering an entire country elsewhere; from handing out money to the single mother who refuses to get a job, to the corporate executive who refuses to let his company take the loss from his mismanagement for his company being 'too big to fail', and the ever-increasing amount that all of it adds up to, it only adds to the height the whole economy will have to crash from.

Our crash is coming; our debt is unsustainable and is not payable. However, we can prepare for the crash and protect against it returning - at least in our lifetimes.

We must not let those who want to rule deceive us with the small changes, or discount the large numbers. Even if we don't know what the consequences are, their effects are still felt; gravity and thermodynamics were every bit as efficacious before our ignorance of them was removed. Removing our ignorance and naiveté leaves us in a better position after the correction to not let those who want to bribe us with our own funds convince us they know better, that they can override economics, or that it will only be a small piece that they will take, or allow them to guilt us into following their path as the only way to help. Their way isn't the only way, and is likely one of the worst ways for in a small step the whole process will begin again.

Posted by GDX at  11:21 PM

### Crisis - Making the Exception the Rule

[Originally posted 04/14/2013]

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." - Rahm Emanuel

He is not the first to have such a thought, but he is one of the most recognized in saying it.

What is the nature of a crisis? A crisis is an unstable interruption in what was taken as the normal flow of things in life/society - generally before all the facts are known. If we apply Rahm's admonition with the nature of a crisis in mind, we can see the emphasis of emotionalism. What was known has changed and with that decreased rationalism, to sate fears of the public, a crafty politician may 'do things you think you could not do before'.

Fears trump facts.

What catches our attention as a crisis? As a disruption of a perceived norm, a crisis is displayed anecdotally with an emphasis on the example being used becoming the new norm.

'This one case happened, and will happen to us all unless we act'.

In the rush to act emotionally, the 'noble goals' (that are amorphous and vague) are focused upon, while the real intent is the means, the implementation and methodology, used to assuage the problem, reach the goal.

The 'crisis' moment is truly twofold: one, the actual crisis event - that part is the obvious and seen part; the more dangerous and insidious part is 2) the crisis-response advanced by those crafty politicians who want to use part one to push their agenda. Part one is temporary; part two is lasting.

Crisis moments are advanced in numerous fields, for the areas where the government may interject itself will match - politicians will try to make it match - every endeavor that humanity tries to branch out into, or may interact with.

One example includes Global Warming, once called Global Cooling, but as it has been fluctuating again is 'Climate Change'... a tautological definition. Has the planet been warming or cooling?-both. What can we do about it? The nature of what is actually happening and what can be done depends on operational definitions. However, that doesn't remove politicians from trying to implement new laws and taxes upon the people in order to 'combat' Climate Change. Crisis: the planet is dying; emotional reaction: we can fight it if we just try. That the facts are not laid out, or the specific plans on how one would fight Climate Change: what is the cause; how much does humanity contribute; how much do those who will be impacted by the law contribute; what will be the cost and benefit; are there better plans?

Those questions don't matter, as Hillary Clinton said "Never waste a good crisis... Don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security." The veracity of Climate change is secondary; the agenda is prepotent.

After the attacks of 9-11[-11], there was an influx of emotional reaction, and appropriately so - to an extent. However, what has come from the attacks show the triumph of emotionalism over rationalism in legislation. The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism [USA PATRIOT] Act has many lofty goals, among them: strengthening U.S. measures to detect, prevent and prosecute financing of terrorism; establishing secure networks; enhancing domestic security against terrorism. However, what is needed (is being used and expanded upon) in methodology for implementation shows what a more rational mind would have refused to sign: vast new bureaucracies, warrantless surveillance and searches, arrest and detainment without charge - even assassination.

Healthcare was another crisis through which Obamacare, and various other laws were enacted. Stories of sick mothers and children filled the airwaves as politicians bandied about to gather support for enacting new legislation. Emotionalism: there are sick people who need our help. There is an 'obesity crisis'; here's Michael Bloomberg and "We're not taking away anybody's right to do things, we're simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision..." At least he used the correct term 'forcing' for it isn't a recommendation when the State passes a law: it is a legal order with punishments for violating it. Pelosi has the most infamous, and dangerous statement with "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

Think on what she said. As the Speaker of the House, leader of those who write the laws - legal commandments that carry the legal use of force by the State - she said that we'll find out what it was they passed when the police can legally use force against us.

Agenda first.

Is anecdotal evidence ever valid for passing a law?-it can be. What is needed to be examined is the congruence of what is being advanced with the story used as representation of why a thing is being advanced.

With the murders at Sandy Hook the gun control debate has come to the fore again. Cries of how new laws are needed to prevent such attacks are heard from various sources: bans on certain guns, bans on 'high-capacity' magazines, more extensive background checks, licensing of guns as well as restricting who may purchase firearms. How good of an example does Adam Lanza's murder of all those at Sandy Hook make for gun control? It makes for a poor example for how gun control would have saved those lives. The weapon used was legally purchased and owned; the owner (Lanza's own mother) was killed, and the weapon was stolen. He fired 154 bullets in less than five minutes, using a weapon that had 30-round magazines. With practice, anyone can change a magazine in just one second; without practice, it can take a couple seconds; 154 bullets could still be fired within five minutes with low-capacity magazines - it will only take more magazines.

Another example of gun violence that supports what was being advanced in legislation was the massacre of Luby's diner where 24 were murdered; the murderer crashed his truck through the building and then methodically walked about executing his victims. Suzanna Gratia Hupp's parents were among the victims; she herself would have been as well, but she escaped. Where this story is a good example in how it represents a change in legislation is in that Suzanna was armed - she was carrying a pistol. However, to be a law-abiding citizen, as there was a law preventing her from bringing her pistol inside the building with her, she left it in her car and was unarmed as her would-be, and her parents' murderer, walked about killing his victims.

The Lanza case does not support the new restrictions on guns for everything was legal until he murdered his mother, took her weapon and fired it in a manner that low-capacity magazines could match. The Hupp case does support the removal of gun restrictions by that if she didn't have to break the law (have the threat of legal punishment) to carry her pistol to protect herself, she could have fought back - [having her gun] "Sure as heck would have changed the odds" - Suzanna Hupp. The Lanza case would not have been changed with new laws; the laws being changed to allow Hupp to carry her pistol in her situation would have also given the victims at Sandy Hook a chance by one who was armed having a chance at firing back at Lanza. Jacob Tyler Roberts is an example where would-be shooter Roberts did murder two, but was stopped when confronted by armed citizen Nick Meli.

Crafty politicians don't want you to be self-sufficient and able to defend yourselves; they want you to come to them for help. Trusting people to fight for themselves against those who want to do ill, doesn't benefit a politician; acting as a guardian who will protect your family, and the children gets people on the politician's side. Emotionalism of fear-stoking is the bait, regulations and laws are the leash and the State is the master holding the leash.

The seen crisis is the break, the change. The seen is finite in its scope; the unseen crisis is worse in its scope. The seen is short-term; the unseen is long-term. The seen is local; the unseen is widespread. The seen, being an anomaly burns itself out after it's done; the unseen crisis remains in laws that have legal punishments long after the seen crisis burnt itself out.

The unseen crisis is the result: the State dictating what we can or cannot do (allowances not just on 'sins' but on ounces of soda, and calorie counts), what we cannot or must buy (taxes, licenses, Obamacare and subsidies), with what or how we may defend ourselves (gun control), and loss of Constitutional rights (liberty, privacy and even life). Each of these State intrusions upon our lives are done to remedy a crisis of some sort - all for the 'greater good' - all to make us supplicants to the State.

If we are to save ourselves, then it is to us to keep our emotionalism coupled with rationalism - not to loose one, but give each their place. Emotionalism belongs in private life of an individual, not the public life of the State; rationalism belongs in individual life, and should be the only guiding factor in the public life of the State. Emotions fluctuate; principles do not.

Posted by GDX at  8:58 PM

### Government is NOT the problem - do not Mistake the Effect for the Cause

[Originally posted 05/23/2013]

There is a problem, but the problem is not the government.

Let us not mistake the effect for the cause.

The oft repeated quote of Ronald Reagan "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem" is currently contrasted to Barak Obama's various goals, regulations, laws and the rest whereby income distribution, healthcare, green energy among other things are to be modified by government to ensure 'fairness' and that people are provided for (How well Reagan followed his own words and that Obama and his administration is not the only administration to push government as the answer will not the focus in this article.)

If we combine the two points of view, we will come to the real issue that needs to be addressed: Reagan's admonition was the criticism of the sign of the sickness that gives rise to Obama's virulent programs. Government is not the problem; it is the result of the problem.

The problem is multilayered: the belief that in some legal form we are 'our brother's keeper' and equally, they are our keeper; that democracy, majority rule, can override moral and economic principles; that there should be a legal base to have categories of people and treat them different legally; that it is proper to use force to make individuals conform to the will/whim of the authorities, whether those authorities are the collective, or the representatives of that collective.

_On being our brother's keeper_ :

The very notion of welfare (corporate and individual) as well as Obamacare and all healthcare permutations (Medicare, Medicaid, _et cetera_ ) is that someone is suffering, so the government must step in and help those who need it.

_On majority rule overruling principles_ :

This ranges over the various areas of life whereby it is deemed 'the majority willed it, so all must follow'. Defenders of such a policy (when their side wins) are quick to decry that in politics 'to the victor go the spoils', though they are quick to contest and protest the results as invalid if their side did not win. The 'spoils' are not necessarily a specific good, but more importantly the legal use of force to implement a plan, an agenda.

Two things not answered by majority apologists, since they are quick to defend their vague quantitative measure for 'majority rule'; 1) at what point does the majority overrule individual rights?- 2) how does the majority deciding 2+2=5 make it so? Examples include: gun control and abortion - at what point is the majority a majority enough to dictate the options to the minority? More examples include: Obamacare, taxes and subsidies - how much of a majority is needed to overrule the law of supply and demand, ignore the punishing presence of taxes, and the how the otherwise unworthy will flourish when the State/government takes from the sufficient and gives to the insufficient?

_On legal classism_ :

There are only two questions the government should be able to ask for census data: 1) are you alive? - 2) are you legally an adult? Anything beyond those questions is the beginning on legal classism. Legal classism is when two groups are categorized, made distinct from one another, in order for one of them to get some form of a legal benefit or punishment; subsidy or tax; permit or license fee.

Classism is a pragmatic tactic; it is done for an end, whether it is to spur or stifle a given behavior.

Want to promote 'clean air'?-create 'green' companies and policies that get subsidies, while pushing new taxes and fees to those companies that are not green. Want to push 'healthy behaviors'?-create 'sin' taxes, and legislate away or limit smoking, sugar, salt, alcohol _et al_. Want to get elected?-divide the people along socioeconomic status lines and pit them against each other; there are fewer 'rich' (a relative term for many poor in America would be considered rich elsewhere on Earth), so as a numbers game, it pragmatically pays off.

However, any form of classism, in embracing a pragmatic end, also embraces a principle: there is to be legal distinction between groups based on a given characteristic. With one application, the principle has been set and another group wants to emerge and have its boon to be received. Have a subsidy for corn?-why not wheat, cotton, soybean, rice, _et al_? (They each are now subsidized, but there are other crops that are not.) Does one group have 'too much wealth'?-take some of it away to give to others... who voted for the transfer from the other group to their own.

_On legal use of force to make people conform_ :

The government has the legal use of force initiation, through (only after) due process as in the pursuit and apprehension of a criminal (and properly, should only be after someone's rights were violated - outside of that, what this article addresses). Everyone has the right to use force in self-defense. The issue here is in the lack of violating another's rights, the use of force to make people obey the dictates of the law.

It does not matter the end: whether it is for the forced one's 'own good' or for the forcer's benefit (or the one who hired the forcer - a special interest - under the guise of the 'greater good'). From speed limits, prohibition, caloric restrictions, concealed-carry laws as for our own good, to for the forcer's (or for who the forcer is a proxy of) benefit such as legal requirements of accreditation, licensing fees/permits and union laws. The goal is to make the chosen ones the only options, keeping others out.

Obama's crown jewel piece of legislation (like the re-ratification of the Patriot Act, passed by both Republicans and Democrats, or similar plans like Romneycare) Obamacare crosses all aspects of the problem: we are each others' keeper, majority opinion overrules principles, legal classism and the use of force to make people obey. The nature of Obamacare and its creation and implementation has the following: that there are some people suffering; everyone must by the force of law be made to support the suffering group; that can only be done after legal classes have been defined (the haves and have-nots); implemented regardless that adding millions more to the demand, and not increasing supply is supposed to make health care (actually medical care) more available and cheaper, and is placed upon all whether it is wanted or not by each individual.

The problem is the idea itself that government can be turned to in order to resolve individual and social issues. Life involves constant struggle in small and large forms: food, shelter, healthcare and many other goods each require investment of money, material and labor; there are those who are ignorant, incongruent, or knowingly biased and prejudicial but see it as part of their belief system: the 'other' ethnicity, or women, or homosexuals are inferior. There is no legislation that can be passed that can override the fact of production of limited goods, using limited resources, just as there is no law that can be voted on that will make people think critically, empathize or feel compassion. There is no way that any governing body can guarantee bounty, and avoid risk for anyone. Those who offer such protection and safety only can claim such boons, while what they do is nothing more than 'legally' steal from one to give or pay for another.

None of this takes away from our individual preference to categorize, to classify according to our preferences \- weighing, valuing, judging and choosing is a great part of what it is to be human. Having the government make our choices for us by legal restrictions removes in small or great parts through each law passed, a piece of our ability to act as humans.

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington.

Government is not the problem; it is the sign of the problem. The problem is the notion that the government should be turned to in order to resolve individual and social issues, forcing all of us to obey. The answer to the problem is free people interacting freely. Will the perfect option be chosen every time?-no. But it will be chosen more often, and adopted to more quickly than the mandated error of slow legislation of government that carries with it the legal force of the State behind it. That is the pragmatic concern. Morally, only free choice can lead to moral decisions.

Posted by GDX at  10:00 PM

### "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" Right?

[Originally posted 06/15/2013]

You are being watched.

But, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

Isn't that right? That is what the watchers want us to believe.

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution reads as:

_The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized_.

The NSA's Prism is the latest (and most expansive) program whereby information regarding communication amongst everyone is collected and stored. The government claims it does not keep the content of said communications, but even if that was true, that should not give us any calming of mind. The data that are collected includes who called who, when, for how long and from where. If one of the people in the exchange is not a citizen, then the _content_ can be monitored - even real-time.

The data collection is just the continued progression of the ever-expanding State presence in society. Though the Supreme Court ruled against it (somewhat in U.S. _v_. Jones, 2012), the Obama administration and Federal government continue to state that a warrant is not required to affix GPS to someone's car, so that an individual's movement can be monitored. The increase of cameras in public places, use of drones for police work, checkpoints and stop-and-frisk are various ways that the State already has been monitoring us, invading our privacy.

With technology, the State is able to track everywhere we go, know who we communicate with and for how long. Again, this is taking those who are monitoring us at their word - that they are _not_ listening to, reading or storing the contents of all those various types of communication.

With that ever-present eye of Big Brother, let's put this issue into context. Through the various programs, even at the benign level its defenders try to portray it as, is no different in observation than a police officer trailing you, taking notes about where you go, who you talked to, for how long. The corollary of that is the web of connections inherent in social networks and relationships - who did the one you talked to, talk to?-what about those they talked to?-and so on.

Would a warrant be required for an officer of the law to trail you, monitor you, collect your metadata, even _if_ the contents were not captured? Would a warrant be required for an officer of the law to enter your house and catalogue your possessions? Would a warrant be required for an officer of the law to answer the phone for you, to get who you were speaking to, who you were calling, as well as reading your mail before you send or receive it? Yes, a warrant would be required.

Just because we do not see Officer Friendly camping out in our yards, handing us our mail or our phones does not mean there is any difference between what that would be, and what the NSA is doing. The data being gathered is being held onto by the government, stored for later use. The State will look into their database to see who you spoke to, when, how long and the network of who they spoke with, and so on.

Here is where defenders of the invasion decry 'If you don't have anything to hide, then you shouldn't care.'

This foolish statement gets offered regularly by those who think that security can be purchased at the cost of liberty - after all, if you want to be secure, you shouldn't mind the State invading your privacy because it is for the 'greater good,' that is to combat terrorism.

No, it isn't.

Those people who make such a statement fail to understand the nature of principle, focusing only on the concrete example before them - of that concrete before them, just a small part, not the whole - selective attention and self-imposed blinders.

Through the acceptance of the specific act, the principle that is set is the violation of liberty for the greater good, of those who have done no wrong, violated no rights and are not conspiring to do so. 'It's just a little encroachment,' nothing more. After all, the laws are there to protect us.

Keep in mind how vastly laws are different or can change from state to state, not to mention Federal law is an ever-expanding mass of legal forms in the way the State may use of force to make citizens capitulate. How do lawmakers stay busy?-they pass more laws. We don't need any more of an example of how grossly the State may change its ambiguous stance on a position than to look at then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's corrupt statement: We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.

Terrorism itself is ambiguous - a helpful characteristic for the State to use the term to punish those deemed troublemakers, or to avoid using for pragmatic political purposes.

Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 13 people and attempted to murder many more. Prior to his murder spree, he had prompted investigation by the FBI for communication with one the State had formally declared a terrorist; Hasan chanted 'Allahu Akbar!' as he continued murdering. Hasan's murder spree was deemed as 'workplace violence.'

Brandon Raub, a marine who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, posted comments - including song lyrics - on his Facebook page that were critical of the government; he was detained and placed in a mental institution, being deemed dangerous, needing immediate mental help. He did not violate anyone's rights.

Senator John McCain advised that the US is also a battlefield. Such a pronouncement makes it so we all are potential enemy combatants, and enemy combatants do not get rights. It is an excuse to say that the content may be monitored. It is just the step beyond what Raub already experienced.

Combine the database, the vast social networks permanently linked, along with the selective implementation and finish the concoction with those in the government trying to show how busy and productive they are by passing new laws and see how the government will be able to look back: who was your doctor?-what kind of doctor was he, and did he change his specialty?-what other doctors did you talk to and when? Did you speak to a gun dealer?-what about someone who knows a gun dealer? Did you post something critical of the government?-do you know someone who posted something critical of the government? It may not be critical now, but when a new administration comes in that takes over usage of the database, did you state anything that the new rulers do not like?

The IRS is going to be invested in healthcare; states have passed laws legalizing (to varying extents) marijuana - that the Federal government does not observe; states have different laws regarding how one may own different types of firearms; abortion laws are always under review to be changed. Have an opinion on any of those issues? Know people who have opinions about those issues? Those connections will end up in the database - if not more than just connections.

At the defenders' own words, the system tracks when, how, for how long those communications existed. Those who are critical of the system (including whistleblowers) state that more detailed data are tracked - contents.

Even at the best case scenario that the defenders try to paint on the invasion of privacy - or as they prefer to call it, just data mining - it does not take away that the illusion of non-intrusion, of not having an actual officer present collecting the data, by its nature sets the principle that without having specific reasonable suspicion and probable cause that the State can interject itself into our lives.

It does all this without preventing what it was supposed to prevent: forewarned by others, both Hasan's Fort Hood shootings and the Boston bombings were not prevented though the NSA's program was in place.

The State (meaning those composing the government) will do what it wants, when it wants, and how it wants, without our knowledge or consent; the programs were created as such in the first place.

This is the ever-present eye of Big Brother making sure the people are obedient. With the threat of force, the State passes laws dictating what we may and may not do; with expanding surveillance, we are being watched to make sure we remain obedient. Making people obedient, removing the options from someone takes away the rational part of the rational animal leaving just an animal, like a sheep; a Shepard keeps his flock safe from predators, but also fleeces all, while even slaughtering some in the herd.

Who is watching you, and for what reason?

Posted by GDX at  11:32 AM

### The Bane of Our Existence

[Originally posted 04/26/2014]

There is a characteristic of humanity that is not part of our better nature. It is, in fact, the bane of our existence. It brings with it repeated trouble through missed opportunities, misunderstandings and even outright conflict amongst people. It persists because it comes under the guise of our betterment while being more easily engaged in than its alternative.

What is this bane?

Our bane is that we are existentially observational, but not self-reflective.

What does that mean? Floating abstractions do not help us and ambiguous claims are equally worthless as definitions are needed. Our bane consists of two parts. The two segments are simple, but like most things simple their application is difficult.

Part one - existentially observational - simply refers to that we can see things outside of ourselves and can make value judgments upon what we see. This by itself does not refer to the validity of those judgments. But to be existentially observational is to experience the existence of something, whether it is something tangible or conceptual, a physical object or an action, matter or a concept, it is a thing experienced.

Part two - not self-reflective - simply refers to that though we may see something 'out there', we do not process that thing as something that equally may affect us - that based upon its being out there and we are not out there or our bias to it, the same principles observed affecting others or happening elsewhere do not necessarily apply to us. This may affect individuals or collectives, but are more easily embraced and solidified with more people adhering to it. Those with similar ideas bolster each other, keeping the thought process maintained through the shared, preferred vision.

First we'll look at the existentially observational; second we'll look at not being self-reflective. The initial examples whereby the existentially observational seem benign and obvious, making their true principles set forth to be overlooked.

Existentially Observational: a moral principle states that between two neutral parties (neutral here meaning there is no prior obligation/victimization between the parties), it is wrong to initiate force of one upon the other to take the victim's valuables, and this remains the same even if a third neutral party is involved to 'out vote' the third. We recognize that we do not have the right to force another to act according to our dictates, or to take from them without permission what they rightfully have earned. Equally, we recognize that someone else does not have the right to force us to do things against our will, or steal our justly acquired resources - even if we are the minority of a group. A stranger or neighbor cannot simply and properly, come up and take the food off your plate.

Not being self-reflective: as a principle, not being able to force another to give up their property or work against their will applies to all. However, we allow it - and even expect it nowadays - when it is decreed as part of a government program, when the State says give or obey. Through various programs being implemented in welfare (whether it is individual or corporate/poor or rich), for health coverage, loan guarantees, or just to 'level the playing field' and for 'income equality', each one is deemed acceptable forced participation or redistribution of one's resources (time, effort and money).

Existentially Observational: we not only recognize that we do not have the right to force someone to do something, but that we also do not have the right to use force to deny someone from pursuing their happiness. In the same manner, we do not recognize someone else having the legitimate right to deny us from pursuing our goals, how we may interact with one another as long as no one's rights are violated.

Not self-reflective: in a similar vein as the first point, it has come to be allowed, even expected that the government may regulate how we interact with one another or how we pursue happiness in our daily lives. If you want to sell your goods or services to those who have reviewed your work and deemed it worthy of patronage, it does not matter if you did not get an approved license/permission from the State on an expanding range of goods and services. If we go outside that permission, we can get fined, arrested or worse if we challenge it. After your own deliberation, if you want to consume something that may have some risks, whether it is drugs, alcohol, raw milk or anything else whereby two free parties may wish to exchange, if it is not approved then you are legally denied it.

Existentially Observational: if you wanted to defend yourself, you have the right to do so and take the precautions to assist that defense. In a similar manner, you cannot prevent someone else from defending themselves in a manner they see fit. Not self-reflective: again, following the aforementioned examples (there is a pattern), the State is expected to regulate who can have what type of firearm, where they can have it, and currently trying to regulate how much ammo it can carry.

Existentially Observational: killing is wrong contextually, for if someone was coming at you with a knife or weapon with the intent of killing you or a loved one and you used lethal force in return, then killing is justifiable. Murder, bringing with it its own context of not in response to the use of force is immoral. We recognize we cannot murder, and expect those who do commit murder to be prosecuted if they succeeded (even, preferably, if they did not succeed).

There is a process, a context outside of self-defense whereby killing is deemed possibly justifiable whether it is through law enforcement such as the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of murderer who may violently resist or through the declaration of war in response to a hostile nation. In each case it is not up to an individual's whim, but a formal process through the courts for the issuance of a warrant or through congress to declare war because of a threatening nation. In either case, there is to be an objective panel that is look at the evidence and decide whether it is sufficient for an arrest warrant to bring an individual who violated rights to justice, or the collective action of nation acting against another; it is not just whim of one being the guiding directive.

Not being self-reflective: those in the government, in particular the president (not just one but most since the last declaration of war by congress during WWII) have gone beyond the process of the objective system leading them to be judge, jury and executioner. Not just individually such as when Anwar al-Alwaki and his son Abdulrahman who were killed in a drone strike, but countless others for anything from 'police actions' to 'nation building' (e.g. Vietnam to Iraq), with all the killing and animosity it brings. Obama is just continuing the practice established, for congress, as well as 'we the people' have not asserted our roles, allowing one branch of the government to exceed its bounds.

In the same manner, we cannot detain someone or search someone, or be subject to someone else's whim to search us, which is existentially observational. Being self-reflective, we see that we do allow arbitrary searches/surveillance regularly upon us, as well as detentions without just cause based upon the whims of those in authority, whether it is The PATRIOT Act, a TSA search, DUI checkpoint, NSA spying, stop-and-frisk, border searches or the like.

Existentially observational: we recognize it is wrong to categorize every member of a group based upon a superficial characteristic (such as race, or socio-economic status) as equally guilty or innocent of the malevolence or beneficence of one member of 'that' group. We resent being grouped with and be judged as guilty for merely being in the same category as one who did commit a crime. Not being self-reflective: we allow and expect various authority figures to make such collectivistic condemnations, whether it is the State to punish or benefit the rich through a tax to 'pay their fair share', subsidy to 'help the economy' or bailout for being 'too big to fail', or any group against another not being a member of one's own class/religion.

An existentially observational furtherance with respect to religion, let us look back upon killing: a parent whose negligence led to their child dying is deemed a bad parent, or at least one who is guilty of negligence even if beforehand they were a good parent; a parent who murders their children is properly deemed not just as a bad parent, but as a murderer.

Not being self-reflective: at a secular level, tying back into the aforementioned of not allowing the whim of an individual elected leader be the one who decides when military action would be made (congress being the one who should declare war), we do not hold the president guilty of all the killing done as collateral damage trying to get targets not formally declared guilty or deserving attack. In Pakistan alone, hundreds of civilians, including more than one hundred children have been killed in drone strikes.

On a sacred level, Abraham is held up as model of devotion when he was preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. He did not actually sacrifice Isaac, so some may say he is an invalid criticism even though he fully intended to sacrifice his son and at the last minute was stopped from murdering him. If a different example is needed, look no further than General Jephthah who did sacrifice his daughter to God, and was rewarded for doing so.

Regardless of whether it is Stalin or Pol Pot starving the people, God targeting the first born, or everyone outside of Noah's family - millions of children and others were murdered: it is human cleansing of a specific population or humanity entire . All of these are done in the name of the 'greater good' whether that is to be in the name of one's country or humanity.

Lastly, this brings us to our final (non-exhaustive) existentially observational point: a basis for moral upbringing should be part of education. Not self-reflective: what should that basis be? Most want to have some religious base. There is an objective moral base, but most interpret their individually-based cultural norm as the objective moral standard. As just mentioned, different religions have different standards and examples of proper moral behavior (how to treat women, gays, infidels, apostates and so on), so when one wants religious teaching in school should it be Christian?-Islamic?-Pagan?-Buddhist?

In addition to whatever the believer's overarching religious base may be, exactly what subset of that system should be taught, for each has divisions/schisms within them: each has members that have gone to war and killed members of other religions (e.g. Crusades or more recently the various Muslim/Christian clashes initiated by both sides, in Africa for cross-religious conflict and the inner conflicts such as in Islam with Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis and in Christianity with Catholicism and Protestantism - some included bloodshed).

A true moral system without bias is possible when religion is removed from it. It is equally foolish to teach a biased religious system in place of an objective moral system in the same way it is to religion as objective scientific fact in Creationism and to 'teach the controversy' that the universe was 'spoken' into existence, just as a stork delivers babies.

Belief systems can be examined at the Existentially Observational level; here they can be dissected. However, ontology is not affected by the epistemological development of the seeker. Regardless of whether one believes in an actual entity of God named Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Krishna or states there is no God, that the individual (or collective) believes it does not have an effect upon the reality of whether or not that Deity (or deities) exists or not.

Likewise, whether one believes a Capitalist, Socialist, Communist, Fascist or Monarchial system is the proper system of government for the best society does not have an effect on the efficaciousness of those systems in being the best for what is it to be the 'best'?-how is it achieved?-who decided for whom?-how is the plan to be the best implemented? That is at a pragmatic level; how moral each system may or may not be is unaffected by how efficacious it may be.

The key question requiring exact definitions is: what is it to be 'the best?' The corollary questions include to whom?-and how? If we only look at pragmatic concerns and efficaciousness, then we can see that the pyramids still stand for us to see, and Jim Jones was beloved by his followers - at least by enough to take care of all the rest of them. Slavery or brainwashing, both may be effective at achieving an end, but both are immoral.

Cultures and beliefs are not equal and many have contrasting if not mutually exclusive belief systems; people have the right to believe in them and participate in them according to the self-direction that they choose as their option. Whether one is a believer in a Deity or is an Atheist, they each have the right to believe as they so do and as an extension allowing each other to follow their right or wrong conclusions. If one wants to free himself from his cultural chains, that is his right, just as it is to put those chains on if he actually wanted to do so, or keep them on after seeing one has the option to remove them. The key point of this is being responsible for one's actions and choices; this is the reason why psychiatrist Viktor Frankl advised having a matching Statue of Responsibility to be with the Statue of Liberty. You can choose, but own your choice; abdication is a choice.

How does a culture embrace science, logic and reason as contrasted to dogmatism and superstition, and most importantly, how is its reason-or-superstition view placed upon the members?-allow its members liberty and self-direction in general, or force obedience/obsequiousness? Whether one's god is a Deity or the State, the base of belief is the acceptance that this third party/Deity has the authorization and ability to do that which we cannot, such as 'morally' steal from, imprison and even kill us, while also overriding the nature of identity such as ignoring the law of supply-and-demand, ignoring moral laws regarding the initiation of force, and changing a stick to a snake.

We cannot properly force another individual to think and behave to live according to our values. That is the principle of tyranny we do not want forced upon us. Individually, people do not have this power; if one person acts without any backing, they can be ignored, spurned or retaliated against either individually or with backing. Individuals acting as a group form collectives. It takes a system, a collective to implement and force obedience. Where is this not being self-reflected?-when dealing with other cultures - interventionism, 'spreading democracy' or sharia. 'Our way' is to be imposed upon the other.

Collectives fall upon a continuum: based upon ideas on one side, and superficiality upon the other side. Collectives can be based on morally irrelevant issues such as sports and which team is liked; collectives can be based upon such life-and-death issues such as nationalism. The crucial distinction to be made is how does the collective 'think', for collectives do not think; individuals think. It is the difference between scientists congregating to review the results of a study and coming to an agreement based upon the evidence against any group who states that by the fact one was born with a certain tint of pigment in their skin or have a different religion, each needs to be grouped differently and have a different moral value - not just description, but proscription and alienation based upon superficiality. Any thinking mind can contribute to a scientific theory; only those matching the appropriate demographic may enter the equivalent of a kid's fort with the sign 'girls stay out!'

Collectivist thinking is not thinking; it is in fact the lack of thinking. It is the embracing of a non-thinking characteristic, and giving it prepotency over actual thought. Collectivistic thinking embraces a non-substantial norm, and that norm becomes dogma.

The bane of our existence emerges from two parts: 1) that humankind is a social animal and we create group dynamics based upon various criteria, such as who is in 'my' family and friends, our culture, who likes the same music, sports team, religion and so on. There are those who are more like us, and those who are not. Others may have beliefs or act in ways one's own group does not like. The further someone is from one, the more their negative aspects will be taken as a personal characteristic - an ingrown/inherent part of who they are instead of people like us growing in a difference social context, in order to justify feeling contempt for them.

2) the valid cognitive task of categorization, but taking it beyond where its proper limits should be. Categorization is a valid, pragmatic process when kept in its proper place: differentiating Red Delicious apples from Ambrosia and Fuji, those specific apples from other fruits (colloquialism of apples and oranges), and furthermore from ripe or rotten. Categorization is improper as mentioned when it gets to proscription and allowances letting someone or something be treated differently, or having different capabilities, based on the same superficial level of differentiating between an Ambrosia and Fuji apple.

When this differentiation is made, new standards are created and people act upon them with the necessary consequences that follow. When 9/11 happened and thousands were killed in a single day with multiple explosions, many were understandably upset, angry and wanted revenge and/or justice. We were attacked, our innocent people were killed and that is wrong so a response to such an attack is right - right in context.

But what has our response been? There has been no formal declaration of war by congress; what has been passed are actions in response to an undefined 'War on Terror' and its corresponding high death tool. In response to the killing of thousands on one day, we have killed thousands over the course of years with multiple attacks and multiple explosions.

It's not self-reflective to think that those who have loved ones killed 'over there' don't feel the same anguish as we do when our loved ones get killed; without a declared war with a State (though for the citizens that would not make too much of a difference), it is people living their daily lives getting killed (family, friends and countrymen) by another group. It is not self-reflective to see the religious symbols one believes in are real, but 'theirs' are foolish, such as to state that though it is nonsensical to have Athena come from Zeus' head, but it is acceptable to have a woman come from a man's rib. We recognize it is perjury to lie to the to government, 'bait and switch' fraud when done by a salesman, but it is 'just politics' when elected officials lie and misrepresent. We recognize that we cannot kill arbitrarily, but allow and even celebrate it if our God does it for us. And an important conclusion to this point: when we grant God or the State permission to act as such, we also grant its agents to act accordingly to enforce its ends.

Each is an example of going beyond the obvious, and into our bane.

There is an objective good that is beyond any cultural interpretation, for each interpretation attempts to find the objective good based upon temporal and spatial limitations. Shadows hint, but do not show the actuality of the subject. This objective standard exists whether or not we humans will be consistent about it. We need to keep categorization in its proper place, in addition to recognizing that principles do not change because of crossing a cultural border, by a deity's commandments, or by a majority wanting something and stating an elected (or appointed) official makes a promise.

Posted by GDX at  11:47 AM

###  'If you don't believe God exists, how could you be mad at Him?'

[Originally posted 05/05/2014]

'If you don't believe God exists, how could you be mad at Him?' (snicker)

Many theists of various sorts enjoy deriding atheism by asking 'if you don't believe in God, how can you be mad at Him?' or 'are you also mad at Bigfoot?' Though there may be a few who are actually angry at a specific god, the retort to atheism with such dismissive questions overlooks a crucial point for the issue at hand is greater than any level of animosity at a specific entity/deity.

Most atheists are as equally mad at God as they are at Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster and the like - meaning atheists are not angry at God for there is no actual object for scorn. Similarly, most atheists are not angry with anyone's belief in their chosen god. The issue of anger comes forward not from anyone's belief in God, but from the basis of that belief in God going beyond personal belief and into aspects that affect public life meaning politics and government.

Some examples are needed to show the concern; this is not a left/right wing issue, for both sides have the commingling of religion and State.

_"Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant - they're quite clear - that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments"_ \- former governor Sarah Palin

Similarly...

_"There is no contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles."_ \- former senator Hillary Clinton

Following Palin's desire here would include violating the first Amendment for the obvious fact of endorsing a religious system; this is a glaringly obvious conflict with individual liberty when all but two of the 10 Commandments have nothing to do with protecting individual rights, but are proscriptions upon human behavior based upon the Biblical God's wants.

Faith-based initiatives, a repeated calling from ex-president George W. Bush, are also against the first Amendment. It's deemed okay when the faith presented matches one's own, but when the faith doesn't match there are problems. An example of 'my faith' is good, but yours is not can be seen in Oklahoma where to match a 10 Commandments monument, Satanists have a design for a statue to be paired with the commandment monument. Additionally, Hindus have a statue proposal for their religion, and Atheists have erected a monument to no God next to the commandment monument.

_"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."_ \- former president George H. W. Bush

_"Those who are quick to feel disrespected often have a spiritual vacuum in their lives, because they feel disconnected to the love of their Father in Heaven."_ \- Presidential nominee Al Gore.

_"If we are practicing Muslims, we are above the law of the land."_ \- CAIR director Herman Mustafa Carroll

_"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage."_ \- then senator Barak Obama

Each of the aforementioned comments emphasizes a legal distinction between how different people are to be treated. No legislation (in America) has been passed that states atheists are lesser citizens, and there has not been any legislation stating that Muslims are super-citizens. There have been laws advanced that repeated Obama's (and numerous other politicians) stance that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Obama, like most other politicians, has an 'evolving' (politically expedient) stance that changes throughout the years from 1996 to 2013.

Law, however, doesn't change as easily as one can change one's mind. Law stays in effect until a new law/amendment is passed that nullifies the original. What will be the result if the same number, or even more people who pushed for the marriage=one-man-one-woman legislation, advance that Muslims are to be super-citizens or atheists are less-than-citizens? The precedent has already been set for taxation in who gets taxed what with respect to socoi-economic status, and distinctions are being made outside of taxation. With precedent, new forms of applying it will come.

_"I am a firm believer in intelligent design as a matter of faith and intellect, and I believe it should be presented in schools alongside the theories of evolution... call for the examination of all sides of a scientific theory..."_ \- governor Rick Perry

Former senator Hillary Clinton stated that Jesus' resurrection was a historic event.

Any religious text has examples in it that if taken literally are morally repugnant or physically impossible. Moral issues are related to the ways people can be treated differently for being not of one's group: women, infidels, apostates or just pagans/barbarians. Regarding the return of the 'Son of Man' in Mark 13:24-25: _But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and those powers that are in the heavens will be shaken_. As Neil deGrasse Tyson quipped, that one says the stars will fall from the skies shows that who wrote that had no idea about what they were writing about.

_"Doing the Lord's work is a thread that runs through our politics since the very beginning. And it puts the lie to the notion that separation of church and state in American means somehow that faith should have no role in public life."_ \- current president Barak Obama

As any politician, Obama does speak well regarding not implementing his religious beliefs in legislation - in some areas. Freedom of/from religion isn't a piecemeal aspect of humanity where it's okay to force some of one's religious preference on others; it is to be an absolute division, leaving individual liberty and self-direction to choose one's course in embracing or rejecting religious systems. Individual rights transcend any religious law; Nature transcends any religious tenet. Just because men and women are different, or that another has a different belief system doesn't mean that one has the authority to morally treat them differently based upon that distinction.

Let us combine some thoughts of those in government with some verses from religious texts and see if the combination thereof is a good one.

_"We are a nation called to defend freedom \- a tradition that is not a grant of any government or document, but is an endowment from God."_ \- former attorney general John Ashcroft

_"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."_ \- president (at the time) George W. Bush.

_"The Constitution promises freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. We are, after all not just another nation but 'one nation under God.'"_ \- former senator Joseph Lieberman

All of the aforementioned examples given are made by those in government, or trying to influence government. That means they are working with the system that has a legal use of force. Legal use of force against its own citizenry and abroad. Segregation, prohibition, eminent domain were each advanced based upon varying degrees of a religious belief; spreading democracy, like _sharia_ , has many who advance religious understanding as the basis for legal/political/police actions. How closely religion and politics commingle.

When a moral/legal differentiation amongst people is accepted as a base for how to see people outside of moral/legal issues (not based upon how they act, but on something else), the dominant power can exercise force against those deemed not worthy of self-direction. This isn't just referring to America's distant past with slavery. Stoke enough fear and groups can be marginalized. This can be an immediate concern as though they were all conspiring to attack (Japanese and German citizens being interred during WWII), or by association with 'evil' such as being 'witches and sodomites'.

When one takes to heart as part of their sacred tomes such verses as:

Leviticus 18:22 _Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination_. (20:13 follows with _'they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them'_ ).

Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2:191 _And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al-Haram until they fight you there, But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers_.

...even if the those who follow those books outwardly differentiates between their political and religious lives, what level of that moral proscription/prescription of actions upon others carry over into other parts of their lives? If there is part of their religious base that has a literal God that is to be obeyed, instead of a spiritual image that had books written about it to try and explain/review life based upon the temporal/spatial limitations of those who wrote the original books, then there is a part of their beliefs that is to transcend the political goals they are supposedly trying to achieve. John McCain, Mitt Romney, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton each were not for the recognition of same-sex marriage. Homosexuality used to be considered a mental disease.

The enlightened can regress if allowing irrationality to smolder. Afghanistan had a more open society for women during the 1970s. The additions of 'In God We Trust' and 'one nation under God' were both not originally on US money or in the pledge of allegiance. The change from openness to closed is rarely quick; the most sweeping and lasting is through an extended time. The issue is not so much (though not wholly excluding) any specific policy advanced that has religious strings attached: it is the principle that those religious strings may be attached at all that is to be addressed. Any specific politician at any given moment may not be calling for sweeping changes, but as a foot in the door keeps the door open so too does that first principle-setting policy that gets passed allowing the religious/political commingling. A different politician, or the same one at a different time, after seeing how much more that door can be opened gradually, will eventually swing it wide open and at that point it will be too late.

All of this will be based upon a philosophical base holding religious convictions prepotent over individual rights. The end result is one who sees his religious cause to be achieved regardless of the methods - of who is sacrificed (i.e. murdered or enslaved), it is irrelevant for there is a 'greater good' and that is God's will. So atheists do not hate God; they do hate the belief and the attempt to bring one's individual literal interpretation of a God into political life. It has its own precedent and natural consequence.

_"Remind yourself that in this night you will face many challenges. But you have to face them and understand it 100 percent... Obey God, his messenger, and don't fight among yourself where you become weak, and stand fast. God will stand with those who stood fast."_ & _"Keep a very open mind, keep a very open heart of what you are to face. You will be entering paradise. You will be entering the happiest life, everlasting life."_ \- Mohamed Atta

Posted by GDX at  11:01 PM

### Belief in God is the Ultimate Moral Relativism [A Brief Review]

[Originally posted 09/07/2014]

Those who believe in God advance the 'highest' moral system created: the one by their respective God. Even when thinking they are granting a concession to nonbelievers regarding the ontological nature of God, they still press that even if God didn't exist, there would be no objective moral system, leaving only moral relativism. The Good is decided by God, and without God, there is no Good. However, what they fail to realize is that by holding up a God who decides 'The Good', they are actually enshrining the ultimate moral relativism. Their moral relativism would be actually worse for it would be systematized, making a 'tyranny for our own good' while individual moral relativism would be constrained to the individual.

An objective moral principle of humanity and individualism states that no one is the property of another. However, God and His 'prophets' had slaves of all types. Muhammad had numerous slaves, and the Bible makes references to the owning of slaves (including sex slaves - remember Moses' taking of the 32,000 'women who had not known a man) to which neither Jesus or Paul explicitly condemn. Objectively slavery is immoral, but with God and God's will, slavery is permissible.

An objective moral principle of humanity and individualism states that murder is immoral (murder, not killing for murder brings with it its own context as killing is vague). However, God and His 'prophets' murdered countless people. 'Killing in the name of...' is the [appropriate] pejorative, but also the justified excuse believers use. Whether it is killing the apostates and nonbelievers mentioned in the Koran, the 'sinners' in Sodom and Gomorrah, the children of the subjects of the one who isn't liked (parents of firstborn in Egypt who wouldn't have any significant political power), the entire planet in Noah's story, or an individual that is one's own child with Abraham - murder is acceptable or even held as an exemplar of devotion with God. God had 32 of the 32,000 virgins offered up to Him. Objectively murder is immoral.

The Classic Greeks asked this question with Plato and his _Euthyphro_ : is The Good what God (the gods) decides, or does God (the gods) like The Good because it is The Good. To give the base of morality to any [Abrahamic-based] God is to cede morality to an interpreted understanding of what others advance from books written by man, influenced by the culture/context of the time, interpreted through generations today to come to their understanding to be pressed upon today. It is relativism, plain and simple. Objective morality based upon human rights and individualism is based upon principles which are eternal, while understanding of 'God's' will fluctuates with time and to who is being addressed. If you want an ultimate, objective standard of The Good and morality then it is not to any God that one should be turning to.

Posted by GDX at  11:39 PM

### Why Proving/Disproving God is Impossible

[Originally posted 09/11/2014]

God is untouchable. This is not just meaning as a physical, tangible entity; this refers to at a conceptual level as well. There is no standard that any believer can advance that will objectively prove the existence of God; equally, there is no standard that any who states there is no God to objectively prove there is no God. The problem arises from the inherent nature of God and proof.

The first point of the issue is the concept itself of God. The focus of this will be on an existing and willing (having volition to will things into existence and can manipulate things by will) God - the theistic God. A deistic or pantheistic God each refers to a God that works with or is Nature - an anthropomorphic God which is a poetic expression as Nature is the main factor in life. The theistic God is not only apart from Nature, but can violate Laws of Nature at will: e.g. turn water to wine, cause the moon to stop in the sky, move mountains, etc - all by mere will. If one takes the deistic or pantheistic God as the same, granting their respective God the ability to have volition and will, then they give themselves the same problems of a theistic God.

Proof requires definitions that are objective, otherwise it is just subjective experience which cannot be objectively proven. God is beyond being objectively defined. God is supposedly the 'Self-Existent One', 'All Father', the 'Alpha and the Omega', 'The Supreme Being'. In addition to this God is also to be Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent: that is all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere at all times. The Bible says in the Book of Job 11:7-8: _Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven - what can you do? Deeper than Sheol_ [place of the dead] _\- what can you know?_ Equally, in the Quran 43:84 _And He it is Who in the heaven is God, and in the earth God. He is the Wise, the Knower._

Each of these definitions are non-definitions in the objective sense for any entity. Epistemology has abstractions that are related to concretes to make the concept that is the abstraction: e.g. various types of apples to create the concept of apple, and various types of fruit such as apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries and the like, to come to the concept of fruit. Without being tied to anything that is objective what remains is subjective interpretation of an external entity. There is a difference between the subjective experience of an external source, such as do we see the same shade of red as one another; that perception may differ. Variation of interpretation of an existential object's existence is in how we see a thing, not in what it is: it is either there or it is not. Whether one sees it or not does not have an effect upon its actuality. If we do not see the table in the dark, when we kick it our senses will alert us to its actuality.

When the books one bases one's understanding of God upon make the same admonition that God is beyond human comprehension, and with only disconnected definitions, what makes something objectively provable is impossible. To define something is to limit it to the definition, but 'Self-Existent One', 'All Father', the 'Alpha and the Omega', 'The Supreme Being' as well as being Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent are each impossible to individually tie to a single entity, let alone combine all of them into one entity.

What is generally advanced as proof of God are 'experiences of God', meaning individually feeling the presence of God in one's life; they 'felt' the presence of God. This experience is not objective, but subjective, meaning it is beyond being verifiable to an actual being. There can be no debate that one may have felt some thing, but that one may have felt something has no bearing on the actuality of what is real in the world. Again, the interpretation of something has no effect upon what that thing actually may be. 'Feel the presence' of something, and is that something the Abrahamic God, Zeus, a goblin spirit on Mars, neural stimulation/activation? The first three each have the same potential proofs; the last one actually can be seen, but it is not the one that refers to an entity.

Non-personal experience proofs of God that are advanced are substitutes for great cosmological forces and events: the origin of the universe, the creation/existence of life. However, these proofs of God are interchangeable with the Deistic and Pantheistic concept of God making the willing God unneeded or irrelevant; Nature is the dominating and guiding factor, with God as a poetic image working with Nature. There is no room for a God that wills; Nature, with science being a good tool to observe, understand and predict events to varying degrees that continue to be fine-tuned, shows us that water when reaching a low enough temperature will freeze, when reaching a high enough temperature will turn to a gas, explain why lightning strikes and what causes and the effects of neural stimulation. This Nature's God is the Law of Identity: things being in accordance to what they are, and interacting in accordance to how they must. There is no God who wills; there is Identity in Nature of 'Is', that is A = A.

Each example of why it is impossible to existentially prove the existence of God, is also a reason of why it is impossible to prove that God does not exist. Without a specific object of reference, there is not a specific object to disprove. In a dialogue on such a subject between Arenos and Madgo, Madgo reprimands "You speak so highly of proof, then I ask you to prove that God does not exist."

"I tell you it is not for me to prove the nonexistence of something; it is for you to prove the existence of a thing. Here" Arenos turned his empty hand so his palm faced up. Looking at Madgo, Arenos continued "I say there is a rock in my hand; prove there is no rock in my hand."

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course there is no rock in your hand."

"Prove it."

"How can I prove what is obvious?"

No proof is proof enough of the nonexistence of a thing. When proof is found, then there can be said for a thing to be. However, proof, or 'hints' at the existence of a thing unbeknownst to man does not mean that it is the willing God. A mystery by default does not mean the answer is God. Eclipses used to be seen as ominous, omens from angry gods or an angry God; however, with science, the supernatural veneer has been lifted and humankind has seen far beyond what any early man could have ever imagined. The Sun used to be seen as an object that moved around in our skies; we now know that it is one but of billions of stars in our own galaxy, and a small star in that. The changing properties of water, as well as the fields of biology, neurology, astrophysics and countless other areas of science show that there is no reason to believe in the God that wills. When there is no proof to first make an assertion of the existence, what more can be offered? Even if there was some proof of the existence of some thing, that does not mean it must be the mysterious, default vague notion of a willing God.

Finally, there are those who state that as there is no proof that there is no God, that is reason enough to believe in God for God will show Himself in His time, to those who are willing and able to receive His message. This is the last speculative resort of one clinging to what is beloved. The depth of devotion though does not have an effect upon the actuality of existence. In conclusion, I offer Bertrand Russell's 'teapot':

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

Posted by GDX at  12:28 AM

### Proof of the New Highest God

[Originally posted 12/14/2014]

In an archeological find that is sure to shake numerous religions to their cores, an expedition to the highest mountains, within the deepest caves of those mountains in the land of Iltamasastan, humanity has uncovered an unequivocal historic find. There has recently been found a new Holy Book which will finalize any debate regarding the True Nature of God. The first written excerpts date back many thousands of years ago. Found deep within caverns that haven't been opened centuries BCE; it is a fascinating discovery. This book speaks the Truth about the Creator, as well as made predictions that have come to pass.

Written in a lost language, with not an individual whole copy, it has taken time to piece the book together and from that, we now have proof of God and Her nature, including how She created the universe. Not only do we have Creation explained, but how a True moral system is to be implemented. This morality as decreed by She not only shows how best to live on Earth, but how Paradise can be achieved. However, just stating that this has been proven does not mean anything. We shall look at the evidence and let it prove itself to us of the Truth.

Let us start out by reviewing God speaking about Herself as the Originator, as it is written in the book of **Adamina** Chapter 1 Verse 10: _Behold, all that you see and yet do not see, that you have seen and will ever see, all this and more has come from Me; I birthed it for you. You, who were in my bosom before you were born, I had loved. I knew you needed a place to live and grow, so all of Creation is for you. Take my gift and live well, but remember it is of Me, and from Me, as are you._

Not only did She announce Her prepotency in Creation, showing Her first Great Miracle, but She showed other miracles for us. The next in Her Great Miracles comes in the regeneration of Life. As it is stated in the book of **Hortense** Chapter 5 Verse 27: _Behold, where you see death, you also see life; where you see life, you also see death. Where you see the carcass, do you not also see that which feeds on carrion?-the insects and small creatures and the plants that devour the dead, then themselves are later eaten, and those eaters eaten, and those eaters eaten and so on? Where you see life, regardless of how robust and healthy it may be, do you not see a life which will end by ending and a body decaying until it is to be returned to be reborn again?_

She advised how to properly relate to your fellow man, as She made clear in the book **Alma** , Chapter 22 Verses 10-15: _To those you know and love, treat them as such – love unshown is the same as food uneaten to a starving body. To those you do not know, accord them the respect deserving of a stranger, with the same vision as seeing yourself through their eyes and how you'd want them to treat you; however, that unwritten description remains blank only briefly and for better or worse, descriptions will be made. Be careful on how you act. A mark on a smooth stone stands out and the only way to not let that mark be the only impression is to have others made, but one bad mark may keep further ones from being made. Individuals are to treat individuals as such; cultures are to treat cultures as such. To those who are hostile toward you, you must also act accordingly. If their hostility is that of a buzzing gnat, they can be dismissed the same; if their hostility is that of a hyena trying to devour your lion cubs, then meet them as that lion who defends her cubs. It is best for people to get along, interact and trade to the benefit of each party; however, not all have noble hearts and if they are set to your destruction and are acting on it, before they are able to devour you and yours, you must defend you and yours_.

Sexual relations are reviewed by She in the book of **Zalika** Chapter 18 Verses 5-8: _You were born to blend your body and mind into soul, for I gave you both; to be your highest self, it is through this achievement. You have the ability to focus on one at the cost of the other - to be focusing on the physical for mindless stimulation, or to be only mind focused and lose touch with reality - but in either way is to live short of the grandeur I made you capable of. This highest is not related to procreation only, for one may love without creating progeny and one may create progeny without love; whether one is of the same gender or different, there is no difference for either way the highest can be achieved. The only thing forbidden is the procreation of same-pair coupling; however, this does not take away from the actualization of spirit potential for those in the coupling. These are my offerings and my limitations. Go forth, find your highest and share in body and mind_.

She reveals the great mysteries of Life in **Masego** Chapter 1 Verses 1-2: _You who seek to know Truth without Me! Do you think you can learn it on your own? How can you learn of Life and Existence without Me?-where will you look? Every direction your eyes look, you will see Me; every direction that your ears hear sounds, you will hear Me; everything you feel, you will feel Me; every scent and every taste as well, you will know My presence in Life! If you seek to discount Me, then like the chick still within the egg, you will not see anything beyond your shell; your world will be limited to your confines, though you will know them well_.

Like anything or one of Perfection, there are those who hate Her for it. They despise Her Glory and their own smallness. She, too, has enemies who want to pull us down to their flawed level. As stated in one of the later books, the book of **Ramona** Chapter 6 Verses 16-18: _The Jealous one has his minions and his preferred servants. You will know them by the acts they do – all of which are attempts to silence She who birthed you, to remove your ear from her words, to benight you and leave you in darkness – as it was written, leave you unborn, with your world the extent of your unhatched shell, and you calling it the universe. The Jealous One will try to trick you by demanding sacrifice to prove love, and will call for you to prove your love by offering your blood, but he will ultimately spare the males while letting the females feel the blade or the fire; he will reward those who will punish the feminine while rewarding the masculine. He hates Her flawlessness and lets his rage rail against those who resemble She. With the prophets of the Jealous one, you will see them live and die in ways that try to take you away from Her, to try and take that which is Hers and make it so you do not associate them with Her. The glorious mountain overlooks the Earth while standing above it, the proud tree that touches the Earth and the Skies, and even the arms of a girl child from a forced marriage will be associated with death. The Jealous One prefers death worship over Life. Unable to birth Life, acts of prestidigitation will be offered as miracles when the Jealous One is merely using what She birthed. The Jealous one will try to convince you that this life that was birthed to you is but a secondary concern to life after death. How can you achieve Life after the death of what was birthed to you? Do not be deceived! The Jealous One is vain and will do what he can to convince you to his death worship, but you will not be able to enjoy Life!_

She predicted the decrease in Her influence because of the increase of people falling for the Jealous one; She also predicted the turn away from the Jealous One and His deceiving and dividing ways. We are approaching that time. We can see the effects now. To continue to fulfill the prophesy as written by the sacred Jaleesa in her book **Jaleesa** 9:99: _The abuses you suffer by the Jealous One shall become too great - come to a point where the promises he made shall be properly brought into question. When you question him, he shall give no answer that satisfies; he will speak vagaries and call them divine; he will obfuscate, but say the blame lies in you for not understanding. Throw off his shackles! He tricked you away from She, but you can shirk those chains yourselves. When you come to realize he is powerless, you will see all the threats he made was because you believed them even though they were no threats he could follow through._

Just as there were miracles that were for all of humanity, there were miracles that were to help specific individuals. For example, in the book of **Esperance** , Padriac became ill and then died; it was She who helped Her people raise Padriac back from the dead. Similarly, in the book of **Terena** , when the earth was parched as The Jealous One had brought drought, it was She who brought back the rains and bountiful harvests.

We need not to just take Her word for it – that is not the way to objectively verify anything. We already have secondary sources that can corroborate Her story. We need to look no further than from Kaapo's history; written centuries BCE, he recounts through oral legend of those who were there first-hand to see the miraculous resurrection of Padriac centuries beforehand. Quillian reviewed the text and compared the taxonomy within its pages and found that it matches the plant and animal life of the area and the time. Not only that, but scholars of the area attested to the veracity of claims within the Book. Heralded for his attention to detail in reviewing the data, Agosta summarized in his **Historie de Iltamasastan** : _When we review the text, and compare it to our observations in nature, we see that the script is correct. We know we need the light of the Sun to see, and where the light of the Sun is not, we see not; can we see in the deep caves unless we have a Sun by proxy in a small fire? – even then, we see not far into that darkness, but only that which is around us and our fire. So it is for us, as it was written by She: our entire Universe is that which is trapped inside a great egg, and our entire reality is that which is within the egg waiting for it to crack and our potential to come from that birth_.

So, there we have it: proof in the script and verification outside of that script of the New Highest God... rather returning to The Original Goddess. Within the text we can see proof of Her greatness as well as Her predictions of the coming patriarchal religions, and male-dominated societies. Not only did She state our place in the Universe in the dark of a great egg, but She also specifically predicted the rise of the Abrahamic-based religions in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The examples of Abraham, Lott and others were predicted by She.

Now there will be some of you who are skeptical of the new God, or return to the Original Goddess. That is to be expected, as the Jealous One She talks about has deceived you into following Him and forgetting Her. However, when we read Her words, see how accurate they are and just experience Her presence, how can any still feel allegiance toward the False and Jealous One?

For those who continue to be skeptical... very good. This was all made up for this piece. In creating this, I did use some general archetypal symbolism, history of religion and mythology along with items that are (or should be) part of any general education. The appropriate question to follow up that statement is: why? Why would anyone be skeptical about the Goddess presented here? Just because I wrote something stating that it was divinely inspired and the Word of God[dess], why should anyone take it seriously?

My answer to that: outside metaphor, why should anyone take any base for religion seriously? There are truths within it expressed as metaphor, but to be taken literally, one would be considered quite mad to believe it. To elaborate, why do we not approach each 'holy' book with the same level of skepticism? They each have nuggets that are beautiful metaphor, but if taken literally or following their laws and admonitions, have abominable and evil actions done in the name of Good because God said so.

No one has a problem dismissing what I've written here about the Universe being contained in an egg and that is why we see so much darkness. Similarly, there are no issues with disregarding Athena being born from Zeus' head. However, Noah's ark, Moses' escape from Egypt with its 40-year journey, splitting the seas, various plagues, burning bushes and divinely handed-down stone tablets... that's real. God made the sun stop in place in the sky for Joshua, and then let it continue on its path again; for Muhammad God split the moon in half and rejoined it. Jesus' miracles are also well-known: water to wine, a couple loaves of bread and fish to feed thousands and walking on water to name a few. Moses', Muhammad's and Jesus' miracles are 'real', but why? In non-canonical books, there are angels whose heads are above the skies, walking crosses and bowing standards (banners) - was one of the reasons why they were not included in the canon because limits of credulity were being strained?

To believe biblical accounts as literally true regarding the creation of the Universe and Nature's laws, we will have to believe that a group of tribesmen from millennia ago, who had no real scientific understanding, were generally limited to the couple hundred miles around where they were born, that these people had a better understanding of the Universe and Nature than we do today from our collected millennia of experience and technological advances. Even children in elementary school [should] have a better understanding of the scope of the Universe than those old tribal members ever could hope to have.

Literally taking these old books as the basis for modern understanding of Nature and the Universe is wrong for there is no possible way that some of the claims in the books could be correct, which if inerrant would invalidate them as literally God's word; in a similar vein, using them as moral standards shows that there is no real morality outside of God saying who to hate, rape and enslave, such as Moses' admonition to kill all, but those girls who have not known a man so they can be kept by the conquerors - except those that would be offered as a sacrifice to God.

There is equally an objective reality for the Universe we inhabit, and an objective morality for us to follow. If we followed the religious books are the ultimate source of information, then you wouldn't be reading this for there have been a long series of medical, technological and scientific advances that enables this communication to happen; they wouldn't have happened if we kept our epistemology limited to religious textual understanding. Equally, at a moral level, genocide would be the general norm. We are better than that and have evolved our culture [most of humanity] beyond the divinely-subjective morality and realistically impossible views on existence. Let us finish casting off the inappropriate lens through which modern religions are seen of true in actuality and see them through the lens of true in metaphor, and then place the remaining religions with myths of the past.

Posted by GDX at  10:13 PM

### Fundamentalists are not Crazy; They are far Worse

[Originally posted 12/17/2014]

A saying that gets offered as justification, or rather as an explanation for the beliefs of those fundamentalist, religious followers who hold atrocious beliefs and commit acts of violence, is the dismissive claim that: they're just crazy. That gets offered by those who lack any religious belief, as well as those who have somewhat a religious belief - generally considered moderates. Though dismissing fundamentalists as crazy does do a good job of distancing them from oneself - appropriately so if one is rational - it is a false dismissal. Fundamentalists are not crazy.

First off, let us look at the word fundamentalist: its base is of course fundamental which is based on _fundamentalis_ \- the foundation, or primary principles. So we need to look at primary principles. Abrahamic religions have as their base their respective God who is perfect and wrote their respective books (Old & New Testaments, and Koran, for Judaism, Christianity and Islam), and is real with a set of rules. The fundamentalist's God wills and has His preferences; those who follow Him are to obey. Here we shall see that it is not crazy to act with such a belief base, for it is much worse.

Fundamentalist base: genocide is not only permissible, but is commendable. One of the greatest figures to the three Abahamic faiths is Moses. In the book of Numbers Chapter 31, through instruction from God, Moses killed the Midianites, and after seeing all the captives, then declaimed in verses 17-18 " _Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man_." Explicitly, this is genocide and sexual slavery. When Boko Haram kidnapped a couple hundred schoolgirls, they were lambastated, except by other fundamentalists who shared their beliefs. Moses did far worse, but is heralded as a hero. Let's not forget human sacrifice in this for of the 16,000 captives, there were 32 who were 'tribute for the Lord.'

Fundamentalist base: infanticide and sacrificing one's own is commendable. Another hero to the three Abrahamic faiths, and that term gets used because of Abraham. In Genesis Chapter 22, God told Abraham to take 'your son, your only son, whom you love... Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering...' To which Abraham obeys, but right before he slays Isaac, the child is spared and a ram is provided which is sacrificed instead and that pleases God for the willingness to sacrifice his son was a test of Abraham. God did not stay Jephthah's hand, and he offered up his daughter as a burnt offering in Judges 11. When Andrea Yates and Deanna Laney murdered their kids by drowning and bludgeoning with a stone, and did so because they were protecting them from Satan (Yates) or just because God told her to do so (Laney), neither one of them is looked upon as acting properly. Both women were found guilty of homicide, and insane (or trying to get decreed insane).

Fundamentalist base: cult-like slavish devotion to the point of neglecting ones' loved ones and even oneself is expected from the highest. " _If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters - yes, even their own life - such a person cannot be my disciple_ " Jesus' admonition in Luke 14:26. Jesus for Christians, was the Son of God; even those who do not see Jesus as the Son of God still hold a similar belief to their respective one seen as a proxy (Muhammad, Virgin Mary, etc) to God. Whoever is the spokesman for one's creed, must be obeyed and given all to. When David Koresh and Jim Jones tried to convince their followers to abandon all in favor of them and their groups, they were labeled as leaders of dangerous cults, and appropriately so.

Fundamentalist base: men and women are of different value, and women/girls have fewer rights. This can be seen in the sexual enslavement of the virgins aforementioned with Moses (elsewhere male and female slaves - when both are kept alive are treated differently), in the marrying off of teens and children to old men (Jesus' mother Mary was a teen when wed to Joseph and Aisha was six when wed to Muhammad, though nine when consummated), both the bible and Koran declaim women as unclean, and in 1 Corinthians Chapter 14:34-35 " _Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church_." The sentiment is equally displayed in 1 Timothy 2:12 " _I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet_ ". Not to be let out of the misogyny, the Koran has in The Cow 2:228 that women have rights that are similar to men, but men are 'a degree above them'; in The Clans 33, women are to be covered. Though men and women have their differences, those differences are not in moral value.

Finally, fundamentalist base: Creation is as it is stated in the [their holy] book. Additionally, God can and does change laws of Nature as He sees fit. From this belief emerge evolution deniers, 6000-year-old Earth believers, prayer and faith healers, belief that sex with a virgin will prevent one from being infected with AIDS. To believe the holy books is to believe that which we know is impossible. In Joshua Chapter 10, God stops the sun and the moon for a day so Joshua could finish his victory over his enemies and in The Moon 54:1, God split the moon in two. Such a miraculous base for celestial events make the handling of poisonous snakes as non-problematic; you just need to believe and you will be healed, like Jesus' restoring the sight to the blind or raising Lazarus.

Each fundamentalist base reflects two things; 1) that Nature and reality are but facades to what is true and God can change anything at anytime for any reason, for He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, so examination of Nature is really futile. If a stick isn't a stick, but a potential snake and dust is a human in waiting, then what really is the reason for studying anything outside God?-why study medicine when one just needs 'faith'? 2) that God chose one and from that, the selected one can commit any atrocity and consider it good because God told him. Whether murdering in mass, or just one's own child, it can be seen as good when told to be done by God, as He has told people to do beforehand.

To believe at a fundamentalist level is to state that the primitive, tribal men had a better understanding of nature and the universe than current scientists. Following that, the moral base was built on tribalism where collectivism was formalized between 'us and them' and others didn't have same rights as one's ingroup; even within the ingroup, there is a hierarchy to abide by - men were the leaders and women were to be subservient. Why is life like this?-it is because it was written. Who wrote it?-God. Who interpreted it, those who had the power.

There is no way that this can be argued. Argument entails claims and definitions to come to truth that can change one's mind with the advanced idea; fundamentalism entails having 'the truth' and making claims and definitions change to fit. How can we rationally argue with one who believes that the sun stopped in the sky?-that the moon was cleft into two pieces?-that a bush was on fire and spoke? How can one rationally make a claim about anything scientific when their base is the negation that science rests upon: that things are what they are, and a stick is not a snake? Similarly, how can one make an argument regarding morality when beloved heroes of fundamentalists were tribalistic, and willing to slaughter those members of outgroups, even kill children.

There is nothing rational to be said to them for they reject reason. However, selectively using the tools of reason, they apply it to their beliefs to further find ways of solidifying belief. There is a furrow on the moon?-proof Allah split it. There are large human bones in Latin America?-proof of the nephilim. Others don't have the same rights, or are even to be killed?-they have chosen the incorrect path and are aligned with the evil ones. If you try and contest those assertions, they will point to their holy books as final evidence and as it is written in them, how can you contest it further? If you contest their holy book, then you are of the enemy trying to take away their moral base and personal relationship with divinity - a great threat.

These people are not crazy. They have a definite value system, as well as a methodology within that value system's hierarchy. Within that, they use the tools of logic only so far as to justify a conclusion already embraced and if logic shows it was wrong, then logic itself is incorrect. True reason is every bit an enemy as reality, and that which challenges their belief is not just challenging an abstract notion of what is right or wrong, but one's personal relationship with what is right and wrong as divinely handed down by a specific entity that cares for them. They blind themselves and lash out to threats. The new world is not as much of a concern as the threat to the old; order is important.

We need to better address the issue: 1) address the threat that those who are willing to use force to achieve their ends; 2) address the base of their beliefs, for it is not just wrong, but it is anti-life and anti-reality. When they reject the reality they live both in the physical and moral worlds, and ultimately state this life that we have now is nothing but an impediment to the life that awaits for us after death - what reason can be used to deal with minds such as those?

Posted by GDX at  11:25 PM

### Scientific Proof Of God - A Brief Review

[Originally posted 12/27/2014]

God would be quite vainglorious if we followed the perception of Him by His followers. It is a perception that is not without merit for it is specifically stated that God is jealous and wants to be worshiped. But it is not God Himself who takes the credit, for the act of taking credit can be done (or assigned) by one who exists - namely followers. It is to these followers that the blame goes to in trying to assert that God exists (outside metaphor), and that God can be proven to exist.

Throughout history any given natural and celestial event was attributed to God and the supernatural, whether it was how all heavenly bodies were seen to go around the Earth in perfect circles, to eclipses being proof of angry gods. Many cultures stopped at that level of awareness; however, some did not and in Western societies, beginning with Aristotle and the Classic Greeks questioning the role of the gods, to Copernicus and Galileo we can see that much of what was seen as the work of God was nothing more than nature being what it is. Nature and existence have the essence of things being what they are: A = A. Among that: orbits are not in perfect spheres, we are not the center of the Galaxy or even our solar system, the tides and countless other phenomena.

That what was originally seen as divine was later seen as purely natural does not detract those who believe from their sacred theory of a divine hand. Even Nature is proof of God, and all the laws of Nature are those that God decreed - for those who think science can point to God instead of seeing the two as dichotomous (again, outside metaphor) as a Creator God and Nature are. Just as in times of old, natural phenomena were proof of God, in times of new with scientific advancement exploring Nature, newer, more intricate details are offered as proof of God; as well as statistical models are used to justify Intelligent Design.

The essence of their points is: everything in existence is too fine-tuned to not be directed by someone/something outside of it.

However, even using their own reasoning, what we actually see are all those supposed proofs of the Creator God, more as proof that a Creator God did not create anything or does not exist. All the nuances, all the probability models each are those that are confined to scientific laws and statistical probability. 'Only God or some super intelligence could direct everything as it is' because if it was just a minuscule degree off, nothing would have happened - no life, universe or anything else. But that is not an answer that points to God, for if there actually was a Creator God, then what would limitations of Nature and Existence have to do with God's power? If a stick can become a snake, a man can be made from dust, and the Universe itself can be spoken into existence from where there was nothingness (excluding God), then what does the orbit of the planet have to do with sustaining life, the elemental make-up of Earth and the solar system and such, what would any of those limitations be to one who supposedly wrote and can violate those laws at will?-e.g burning bush that is not consumed, water to wine, sun stops in the sky and stars fall from the skies... all from will.

Additionally, whether one says God (or aliens as some do) guided the formation of Life, the necessary question becomes: where did those aliens or God come from? This question will never end, for if you say A created B, and C created A, then what was there that created C, and so on. Aliens have the same line of questions for any physical entity, but God needs an extra point of consideration.

Summed up in a Poem Metaphysics from The Gospel of Reason

Exactly why, does he, mankind, exist?

From where did life, and order, formulate?

And, how – without a cause, nothing to list;

Did all the Universe come from that state?

Is Nature fated? – did it have to be?

No plans, no script, just forces manifest;

Not cruel, nor mean, with no affinity.

Objective rules are learned from interest.

The other choice: a primal Creator;

The being living in vacuity.

But how did He, with nothingness before;

Beget the stars, all else? – His nascency?

The answer, Nature versus God, sublime;

There is no doubt that one has been all time.

What seems more probable when we come to the great mystery: that material forces created the material universe that set up the base from which life could emerge, or that before there was anything to be born from, sustain or be part of, there was the highest living entity who created everything without having anything to create with and maintained His own life without anything in existence for his birth or maintenance? Whether the review of the Universe is correctly done doesn't affect the reality of what is: we can say God is angry and that is why the sun disappeared, or we can learn and know better.

Posted by GDX at  12:01 PM

