Abuse

Posted on February 14, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that someone who beats his wife daily might be indignant at being told to stop beating his wife. After all beating one’s wife makes a man feel strong, powerful and keeps his wife under control. Control being important to the abuser.

Wives who get out of control put the ego of the abuser at risk. Wives who want too much leeway in their own lives. Damages the inflated and fragile ego of the abuser and he will react accordingly. If she tries to exert her sovereignty and drive a car or have a female friend are examples.

But to the abuser the most dangerous thing a wife can do is realize she can leave the relationship. Abusers that have become rich or have forced their twisted view of humanity on parts of the town through their abuse are especially in danger. Their wives could leave them and the abuser might end up dead in an ally somewhere.

I know of an example where the abuser slapped down his wife very violently and publicly, following her all around town, slapping and beating her with a closed fist in front of everyone in town, even in the European battered woman’s shelter, with not a person offended. His abuse was barbaric yet met no real criticism or action to stop it. When the wife, bloody and swollen, was dragged home by her hair, the town breathed a sigh of relief.

Yet lately I know of another example of an abuser who, while still an ass, let his wife act up. He put a half hearted attempt to slap her down but was met with widespread criticism from around the town. He went to therapy but to no avail. His wife left him and, as is normally the case, is now looking for another who will surely do her harm. She’s waiting… yea. For another love…

So we have this dichotomy in the town’s reaction. Surely there must be a reason. Lets examine the philosophy of the abusers to see if we can glean it. The one, who met no condemnation, brags in the bar every night that he wants to bring about the end times and calls for killing everyone who disagrees with him, bragging he would spill the blood of millions of people all over town and bring about the destruction of the Western way of life is his favorite drunken rant. While he amasses an armory of illegal weapons in his basement.

The other, the one who met immediate condemnation, and who’s wife’s going to a battered woman’s shelter was encouraged by town leaders, has a live and let live ethos. He didn’t brag he wanted to kill people, he didn’t call for the extermination of anyone, in fact he barbequed with his Jewish neighbor, once in awhile. His live and let live attitude had led to the betterment of his wife’s standard of living. Growing at over 5% during the last few years.

I hear now she is on Match.com looking for a fundamentalist who isn’t afraid to go to war with the neighbors over a fence. She is not alone however there are plenty of wives all over her neighborhood who want to rebel. The town fathers seem to be encouraging those of the mild abusers and protecting the true criminals. Maybe she actually will end up with a liberal guy, who may even let her balance the checkbook, we’ll see. I hope and pray that she does…

The wife of the first is still not happy in her coerced marriage. I hear she will be acting up tomorrow in the suburb of Tehran. I will be curious to see, if the town fathers encourage her, or him, and turn a blind eye while making placating noises. They have started making the noises but I have yet to see action. (And I doubt I will).

It is a terrible thing to see a woman beaten daily in front of your eyes, but it is an even worse thing to see her go from one who simply subjugates her to an abuser who will, eventually, beat her to death. I have no love lost for a bastard who beats his wife, but I certainly am concerned, when she goes from one abuser to another but the other will probably kill her trying to kill his neighbor… (She never liked the neighbor anyway).

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What Form Compassion?

Posted on February 10, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that compassion is not really a relative term. Compassion is both self effacing and uplifting to another. Compassion is never insidious.

Is this compassion… If a government provided it’s people, free of charge regardless of ability to pay, housing, food, healthcare, heat, and a stipend to cover incidentals like clothing and entertainment. Would most people work in that society? Why would they? It would make no sense, especially if, to cover the cost of these things a person needed to work two jobs, and live in squalor to boot.

Why have to get up every morning at the same time, get to work on time, else be chastised, struggle to get home just to write checks, for the things the government would cover for you, if you were indigent. The inevitable result would be a society that simply does not work. Nothing would get done. Why clean the streets when it is warmer at home? Why pick up the garbage and inhale that odor when the air at home is as sweet as a forest glen.

Such a society cannot long sustain itself. No matter the financial wherewithal of the government, that would be so unwise, as to make it’s inhabitants indigent. Such a society would collapse in it’s own squalor, piles of filth heaping into stinking mountains, collapsing roads, bridges and buildings would make any act unsafe, and pestilence everywhere. The first despot to come along would be cheered by the people the realization would come too late.

Lets further take our outlandish scenario, and say, the government has no wherewithal when it comes to money and pays for it’s largess with rapine. Punishing more and more the people who do the work society needs done? What if government spending far exceeds it’s ability to pay? It borrows. Borrows twenty percent of GDP then fifty percent then Eighty percent, interest piling up, even as the money is being spent to undermine the societal work ethic. The economy would drop as the debt would grow, until our hypothetical nation’s government sold bonds… and no one came to buy.

But anyone can see this clearly and with alacrity you might say. Especially a person schooled in liberal arts and big minded in their thoughts and actions? Such a society could not exist because the Elite would never let such a society come into existence. No member of the Elite would be so foolish as to not only allow but to encourage such a society to come into being. Further, simply being schooled and learned the Elite would certainly see such a society being conceived, were it happening.

But it may be, that to have such a society come into existence, would serve some malevolent minded interest of some of the Elite? Only a small faction of that small faction need be in on it or be complicit. The rest can be ridiculed into submission. Ten percent of ten percent is all that would be needed.

What could possibly be served by such a society coming into existence, the first despot to come along would enslave the weaklings immediately and force them to work… Forging their own chains. The ten percent of ten percent could be planning just this very thing to take charge and become a true aristocracy. Protecting people from themselves and dictating economic outcome depending on political status.

Of course, the ten percent of ten percent may believe themselves to be benevolent, and not being religious men, they don’t mind how the road is paved. Too bad they have the map upside down…

Would that be compassionate?

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Happy 100th Birthday Ron Reagan!

Posted on February 7, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that Ronald Reagan was a great president. He took the United States, from an economic point similar to the one we are in, and turned it around to have low unemployment, good growth in GDP and won the Cold War to boot. Not small accomplishments.

One of his strengths was that he followed Machiavelli’s maxim, that a wise prince secure the loyalty of the population over the approval of the aristocracy, in that the people are far more numerous than the aristocracy and have more power of violence (political power), as a result. Marshaled under the prince people power can suppress the power of the aristocracy. Ron Reagan had to go around the political and information establishments to get his changes through.

The changes Ron Reagan wanted to pass, and did pass, were an anathema to the existing political establishment at the time. Deregulation was vilified as leading to the deaths of millions… didn’t happen. Placing medium range nuclear missiles in Europe was called overly provocative, and President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative was derided as Star Wars, an impossible dream. Ron Reagan was vilified at every turn by the unbiased media.

All the terrible outcomes predicted by the unbiased media didn’t pan out, and all the outcomes the unbiased media opposed, came true. President Ron Reagan, as it turns out, was prophetic in his policies. The total collapse of the USSR and the Communist Bloc was a direct result of President Reagan’s grappling with the Soviets. Lest we forget, the world was under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. Ron Reagan lifted that cloud from out heads.

Deregulation and lower taxation proposed by president Reagan and opposed by the Democrat Party and a large faction, (the progressive faction), of the Republican Party, resulted in a complete turnaround in the American economy. Interest rates went from 16% to 7%, unemployment went from a post war high of 10.8% down to a more reasonable 6% and lower.

President Reagan opened up drilling within the borders of the US as much as possible to lower the cost of energy. He understood that energy, as a primary input to the economy, is critical to the smooth functioning of it. When artificial constrictions are put on the supply of energy, by overly zealous government regulation, the price becomes more volatile and hammers the economy. He got the government out of the way.

Not only in energy but in a whole host of areas from transportation to space exploration. These resulted in an expanding of the US economy unheard of since the early post war period. I remember MacDonald’s was advertising for workers in 1987 $9.00 an hour! In 1987 dollars that is like $20.00 today! The economy was going gangbusters.

The progressive wing of the Republican party took over in 1988 and went back to regulating and taxing… despite rhetoric to the contrary. The outcome was as predictable as the input would be from the progressives, higher unemployment and lower GDP growth. Hard to imagine that if you put a bullet in the belly of the economy it won’t function as before.

When the conservative faction of the Republican Party, (people who wish to conserve the legacy of the enlightenment) regained supremacy in 1994, in the Congress, they went on an austerity binge and were vilified for it. The unbiased media was unrelenting in their vitriolic presentation of the cuts and spending controls the Republicans put through. “Mean spirited” is how the unbiased media put it as I recall. The austerity that resulted in the balancing of the budget for the first time in decades.

The Conservative branch of the Republican Party was decimated by the hammering the unbiased media gave them for their balancing the US budget, and the credit for the accomplishment went to the progressive president, who had fought tooth and nail, the measures that begot the result.

We will see the exact thing play out in the coming years. The Conservative Republicans will be vilified in the Unbiased media and the credit for the outcome of the pro liberty faction’s measures will be meted out to the anti capitalists (Protyranists), who will fight them every step of the way.

We shall have to wait to see how this round plays out but we know where the battle lines are. The philosophical descendants of President Ronald Reagan, the Tea Party, and other conservative groups will be vilified as was their ancestor Ron Reagan. He would have gone around the unbiased media, directly to the American people to explain his agenda, he would do it effectively and with a glint in his eye.

Maybe that is why Sara Palin is so reviled and despised by the unbiased press, who heap mounds of vitriol on her… because she is a good communicator and is the philosophical descendant of Ron Reagan?

The guy who was just a dumb actor.

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Productive Effort VS Killing Each Other

Posted on February 3, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that now would be a good time for a world leader to negotiate a world mission to build a permanent moon base in 10 years. Doing so would have many effects on world politics and the attitude of people in various parts of the world to one another. Because I worry the world is setting up for a big war.

It would take huge effort and foresight for a small cadre of Elite to push a thing like this. The political risks would be great but the historical payoff would be prodigious. Imagine being the people credited with such an effort were it to succeed? Great achievements of great men come to mind, Cheops pyramid, Roosevelt’s Panama Canal, Hoover’s dam, Qin’s wall and others, The political effort would be immense but what price for immortality?.

Such achievements give light to the human spirit and make the drudgery of the day less tiresome. They provide us an outlet for our anger, frustration and anxiety that is productive and heartening. There is toil and frustration in the doing but exhilaration in the completing.

Make the thing a team effort complete with milestones to cheer for. If the mission was designed with every participating country having an important part the people in that country will feel connected to the enterprise. The trick would be to effectively educate the people in their various countries as well. Then the people will feel invested in the project and will cheer it along!

It would be important to keep the cost to any individual country small enough so that the percent of GDP effected would not harm the economy. This would minimize the ability of naysayer’s to snipe at the project and protect the participating countries economies. Such an audacious project would necessarily be expensive.

One of the overall aims would be to align the interests of many of the worlds people, at least in this one thing, so that they will be more likely to give another the benefit of the doubt. People love drama and excitement. We get behind a good struggle. Wouldn’t it be better to struggle to conquer the Moon then to struggle to kill each other?

The political effort would be eclipsed by the scientific and engineering effort it would take. The whole project would let mankind flex our muscles. We would see what we can do and in the doing learn how to do other things faster, better, and with less inputs, the definition of improvement in economic productivity… The productivity improvement that raises wages and incomes.

Another goal would be to build critical infrastructure. Spreading out the infrastructure would give many countries the ability to get tangible results from their effort on the project. While any project such as this is not in any way a jobs bill but if it creates some lasting jobs, especially jobs that will be transferred to the private sector in the future, put people to work in the economy.

A major objective would be to get infrastructure in place to harvest helium 3 before the need for it. Our societies can garner benefits from the scientific and engineering advances we all would get from the project today like unforeseen benefits as from the Apollo program. But the potential of helium 3 to generate clean safe electricity on Earth must not be overlooked.

China, Russia, Japan, the European Union and the US have the ability to put a man into space in a pinch, India will soon be able to. The nations of the world are going there anyway why not marshal the effort to the benefit all mankind? The International Space Station is the model, a Moon base would be tougher and more expensive but the payoff would be exponentially higher.

One war averted and the cost will be paid back a hundred thousand times…

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Revolution and It’s Natural Outcomes

Posted on January 31, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems self evident to me that a thing that has happened in the past is possible in the future. To argue otherwise is to argue history has no meaning and empirical evidence cannot be relied upon. This would require all science and knowledge to be thrown out logically. Since this is not possible then what has happened in the past is possible in the future. Both to the good and to the bad.

A good set of examples are the peaceful revolutions of the Eastern Bloc. The Velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Solidarity movement in Poland were peaceful and led to stable republics. Even the nationalist breakup of Czechoslovakia into the Check Republic and the Slovak Republics were peaceful and led to little bloodshed. They are shining examples of how to move from a tyranny to a Republic.

Bad examples have been far more plentiful. From the revolutions in South America that led to “President’s for life” through revolutions that led to communist governments that murdered millions of their citizens to revolutions that ushered in theocratic regimes, with an end times philosophy that they shout from the rooftops, but the rest of the world is too scared to face and turn their heads in shame and willful ignorance.

Revolution usually means the ushering in of a new tyrant instead of replacing him with a true republic. The new tyrant is afraid, that the public outcry that brought him into power might oust him as well, and is vicious in keeping the people sufficiently down, to prevent this from happening. Then the people are shoved from mere tyranny, into being subject to the whims of a panicked despot, terrified of his people and willing to do anything as a result.

History shows us that when there is not a viable oppositions party the government devolves into tyranny. In the worst case scenario the government devolves to Lebanon in the 1980’s or Somalia today. In these cases we see the result of factions who are not interested in the good of society but only their own good. Willing to do any amount of harm to others to get their desires met, they show themselves to be the worst kind of child… The screaming brat. They scream at the injustice they feel and mete out far worse injustice on others without batting an eye. The people who control these factions are evil incarnate.

When historical conditions and decisions are revisited the results are always the same. For the good or for the bad it is the people who suffer the most. Possibly because the people are a blunt weapon in the war of tyrannical politics. Too blunt to force their will but powerful enough that no tyrant can stand it for long. This blunt weapon is perfect for the use of a potential tyrant. The potential tyrant convinces the people or at least a small cadre that they will be a benevolent tyrant and will serve the people… As fodder.

But if a new means were employed necessarily a new outcome would occur. If we add vinegar to soda then a chemical reaction occurs that boils over the container. But if we mix neutral water in the soda then we get a different reaction. It may seem like we must immediately change from base to neutral but that may cause negative side effects and this is exactly what we have been talking about. Changing an input to a situation changes the outcome.

What if, in cases where the people are fed up with a tyrant who has been in power for 30 years, what the people really need is a NUMA. A branch of government that is powerful enough to force the tyrant to follow his own laws. Chain the tyrant and he becomes a dog. Placid and protective. Unchained and roaming in packs, tyrants are subject to rabies and can turn on their masters, (the people). Dogs and tyrants require a chain. The best chain for tyrants, both benevolent and malevolent, is the NUMA.

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Protyranists

Posted on January 27, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that there is never a dearth of people who think they know how others should live. They themselves are reticent to have any other person have any input into how they should live even to the point of outlawing thought and feelings. I like to call them protyranists.

While no protyranist believes they themselves will come under the tyrants purview he or she loves to level moral outrage at despicable acts of greed, things that are unconscionable, and the like. Making moral judgments while denying the other side the right to make moral judgments.

But if making a moral judgment is wrong then making a moral judgment is wrong. It cannot be that making a moral judgment about a thing that is not only self evident but is empirical truth, is wrong, while making a politically based ‘moral’ judgment, with class warfare as the premise, is acceptable. It simply cannot be logically. Yet, it is unquestioned, when it is done.

We all live in a cave, according to Francis Bacon, and we see the world from our unique point of view. From our perspective the way another lives may be totally unacceptable to us but we tolerate the other’s right to live as they do. We allow them the right to destroy themselves, or to succeed, it is their life, not ours to play with.

Like most all the situation comedies you and I have ever watched. Lucy interferes with Ethel’s life, with the most loving intentions, and the whole thing goes awry… Comedy is always based on some point of irony in human nature. The irony is that no matter how well our intentions, when we interfere in the lives of others, we have great potential to do great harm.

The only time we have the duty to interfere is when someone is damaging the human rights of another. This is widely recognized as the definition of when the State has the right to interfere with the rights of the individual.

For example; If an individual is offended at their neighbor planting pansies, the offended neighbor has no right to interfere with the neighbor with poor taste’s flowers, but if a neighbor sees their neighbor being strangled, they have a duty to interfere with the person’s rights, who is strangling their neighbor. The State is exactly the same.

The difference is that the State has a monopoly on violence. Willingly given from the people as a means to stem the violence of the brutish among us. We, as civilized citizens of a nation, give up our right to retribution, to the State, to be carried out in a manner that will have the most settled and ordered, (for society and the individual’s), outcome possible.

Another of Francis Bacon’s idols is the idol of the theater. Protyranists love to us this against the people they seek to tyrannize. They construct some elaborate scheme that seems true even when you think about it. The protyranist gets the scientific community to gather around the idea by making it very lucrative to do so. Then systematically evict anyone with a confounding question. Eventually people in the scientific community will get the hint and will go along.

People follow what they believe the scientists believe. We all give the scientist the benefit of the doubt in part because of the scientific ethos. To doubt all theories until proven. But even this has led science astray more often than not. The line of advancement in our understanding of science, or the mind of God, has not been linear, it has been more of a fractal. So, we have been led astray by people who we trusted, and who trusted themselves.

When this scheme, the protyranist has cooked up, comes to fruition, it will require drastic shifts of power to the State from the individual. The protyranist has his dreams fulfilled as he gains power over the foolish masses. He can then improve their lives, just like Lucy did Ethel…

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International Competition for Jobs

Posted on January 23, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me the fundamental misconception, that world leaders and the public at large have about jobs and the world economy, is that the various countries of the world are in competition for jobs, when nothing could be further from the truth. The reality of the situation is, as more people move to specialization within the market system and away from subsistence farming the more demand for jobs grows, around the world. The flow of labor is like water always seeking a low point. It is the actions of government’s in their futile attempt to marshal the forces of the market, to get jobs within their countries, at the expense of jobs in another, that government‘s effect competition.

Most all economic historians agree that the depression was in large part caused by the Smoot Hawley act and other similar laws and tariffs passed around the world at the beginning of the 1930’s. Those anti global trade laws resulted in the collapse of international trade. Jobs were lost in every country. The unemployment rate rose to staggering heights despite the willingness of people to work. International trade is empirically, historically, even if counter intuitively, proven to create jobs.

The demand for low skilled employment is supplied from a giant pool of uneducated people on the planet. However, as jobs flow into an area the work force inevitably becomes more educated. Even the lowest skill job is civilizing. The need to meet a schedule, the need to be dutiful in time, money and personal management, gives people the sense of what it is to be “self interested rightly understood.” As the workforce in a low educated area become more and more active in the market the level of education rises.

As all this happens the demand for what was formerly “luxury” items increases. This demand must be filled from abroad. The increased trade grows the need for workers to handle the logistics and so forth. The demand for labor not only rises but the demand for educated labor goes up as well. When employment has neared saturation, of those that want to be employed, the cost of labor rises. This drives the demand for new low skilled labor to the next lowest area.

The point is, that the jobs don’t move, they evolve. Low skilled low paid jobs, evolve into higher skilled higher paid jobs, that are better suited to increase the expectations of the people… thus aggregate demand. Even the evolved jobs are not in direct competition, in the international marketplace, unless government regulation drives them away.

Here is the crux of why the Elite have a problem with international trade and globalism… It gives people and businesses, the ability to leave onerous regulation, and go where government policies are more favorable to free enterprise. The Elite want to pass poorly thought out regulation along with insane legislation, that the Elite carve out exemptions for themselves, with impunity. They want there to be no consequences to their actions, legislatively, to reflect the lack of consequences to their personal actions. All of which would be corrected with a NUMA.

So it is not that countries are in competition for jobs within the international arena of demand but the Elite want impunity for their actions on the job markets in their countries. That is why Smoot Hawley was enacted, to give the progressives in America, at the time, the ability to grapple the markets under control, without people and business fleeing to other countries. The market turned out to be far more slippery than the progressive Elite thought it would be, and the Constitution kept getting in the way, forcing the Elite to go back to international trade.

The countries that reengaged with international trade in the 1940’s, after the war, did very well economically, those that didn’t became Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina etc… Their countries government’s became more introverted and more focused on protecting what they had than in opening up to international trade. They have made the same mistakes over and over. Enacting legislation in the 1980’s to protect their fledgling computer startups hobbled the rest of the economy is only one example.

We see over and over, everywhere we look, that countries that open up to international trade become more wealthy. As a nation, as a people and individually, the wealth of a nation grows. The modern example of China shows us the advantage to opening up to international trade. The fact that China has huge subsidies and is running down the road to oligarchal capitalism, headlong into the brick wall that blocks that road, is not in any way confounding. It is not the subsidies, the tariffs or the currency manipulation that has brought so much new wealth into China, it is international trade.

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Standardization

Posted on January 20, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that when a solution is found to a problem it is wise to use that solution even if we might find it personally distasteful lest the problem become intractable and pernicious. Like the wheel. There may be a better solution than the wheel but the wheel is so effective that we ceased looking for an alternative long ago. In fact the ancient Mayans may have found a different solution they had demonstrable knowledge of the wheel and used it in their toys but not industry.

It is when the solution comes up short, that we search for better or more task specific means, to re-solve the problem. Water works well to douse fire, but not so well, when the fire is electrically or chemically based. In these cases we find that our preferred solution comes up short. Here our ancestors came up with other solutions for electrical and chemical fires. So other solutions are used when we come across fires of these types.

Often in the search for a viable solution to a problem different people will come up with different solutions. Each thinking his solution the best, (and most profitable if his patented solution wins out). Due to an effect of Olsen’s, logic of communal action, in those that have a ‘dog in the race’ cannot be relied on to render unbiased opinions. This results in a myriad of solutions implemented haphazardly, is often dangerous, is usually inefficient to implement and difficult to maintain. In this case it is more effective for government to standardize a solution or as Confucius said it, “rectify terms.”

When government ‘rectify’s terms’ it creates a standard, a standard that can be implemented by many different businesses and creates the conditions for perfect competition. Once this happens economies move. In the US the standard for HDTV was hard fought with many actors, effecting the outcome, who had a ‘dog in the race’. They held up the process for years but when the standard was set, the price, availability, and quality of the new HDTV’s became much better for the consumer. Because setting a standard begot “perfect competition.”

A non governmental example is the computer revolution powered by the widespread acceptance of Microsoft Dos then later Windows. The adoption of theses platforms as the standard, allowed those that programmed to learn one operating system, that they could write software for making the computer more and more usable, while the standardization also allowed computer manufacturers to lower the cost, raise the quality and achieve impressive market penetration. Imagine if no standard was ever set. Computers would be exponentially more expensive, there would be limited software available and it would be platform dependant, and quality would be hit or miss.

However governments around the world don’t set standards they usually dictate policy. Government in the US regulates every aspect of the insurance industry but sets few standards. Paperwork for example. If government set a standard set of paperwork for every health insurance company in the nation, imagine the cost reduction for doctors, insurance companies and patients, not to mention the errors that would be avoided by the standardization. Instead of dictating what the very provisions of health policies within a State the nationalization of a paperwork standard would drive down costs and improve quality, as standardization almost always does. There are many other examples of where governments could set standards that would improve the economy, lower costs, increase quality and make life easier for people.

The problem is that standardization can go wildly off the rails if it is done with an eye to politics. Like in South American oligarchal capitalism, where government serves the needs of a specific faction of the population, in this case a small cadre of families, that own everything. In some instances the average person has no ability to own land only the elite. The communist countries are even worse as they serve the needs and wants of a single man instead of an aristocracy.

With the caveat of political interference always threatening every action government takes, standardization is an important role of government. Standardization works even better when it crosses political boundaries. Our earlier example of the computer revolution crosses political boundaries but the example of HDTV does not. If the HDTV example were extended across governments then the standard would have even more effect.

Yup, it’s easier to create something if there is a standard to work with; but if you have to make it all up as you go, it will be harder, take longer and won’t come out as well…

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Violence and Society

Posted on January 17, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that anyone, who honestly claims that the violence we see in our societies are an aberration, is profoundly ignorant of human history. Look at the virtual violence we surround ourselves with, and the omnipresent media hyping the decadent lifestyle, while the news glorifies, to the extreme, the psychopath. The next psychopath to be crassly milked for ratings as much as the first.

Now, if I made little figurines of the twin towers with a plane imbedded in it, and sold them, crassly for profit, that would make me an ass. To profit from a tragedy are the actions of an ass. Like the unbiased media or politicians fundraising from one. Not only profiteering from the tragedy but taking illegitimate political pot shots at a political faction. While, by exaggerating the crime, they are crying out to other damaged people who, ignorantly, want to live in the pages of history… They too can have life unending even if as a villain.

History is rife with violence. The Romans entertained themselves with virtual war in the arena. People the world over entertain themselves with cock fighting, dog fighting and every form of fist fighting there is. Not only us but every society in the history of Mankind. We were born of violence and it is in our nature.

It is our upbringing, that allows us to overcome our violent nature and grow us, morally, into civilized people. Hsun Ching said that the congenital nature of Man is evil, while Mencius said the congenital nature of Man is good. They were both correct… and they were both wrong.

Mencius argued that no person would not fret at seeing a child fall into a well… While this is for the most part true, there are those that would derive pleasure at the sight. Sick and twisted sociopaths that lack empathy. Hsun Ching claimed that we are all born needy and self indulgent. As we grow up our selfish nature is tempered by our parents teachings and we go from childish barbarians to civilized humans.

It can be argued, Alexander the great would not have defeated so much of the known world, had he not been schooled by Aristotle himself. In Plutarch, Alexander is quoted, as quoting Aristotle. So Alexander’s evil, selfish, (barbaric) nature was not so much civilized, by Aristotle, but empowered. Despite the sage teachings, in this case, it can be said that Alexander was more a product of his environment, than his teacher. Yet after his death and the disillusion of his empire, Alexander’s life amounted to the moving of a few lines on ancient maps, the deaths of tens of thousands of people, the destruction of farms, homes, cities and fortunes.

We are all a product of our environments… and our schooling. The most moral people need not be from the most moral backgrounds but they must have some spark of morality within. Some animals can be tamed, while others always remain a mortal threat, no matter the love showered on them; some people can be civilized while others remain a mortal threat. (Due to their barbaric upbringing ala Alexander). Those that are “untamable” end up as psychopaths and sociopaths causing innocent people pain and suffering.

Wile all violence is a tragedy, beyond all scope of comprehension, for the families of direct victims, the tragedy is no greater than for the families of soldiers, police, or any other innocent victim, randomly killed. Their loss is suffered no less, than when a member of the Elite, has been killed or wounded. I subscribe to the notion that all human life has equal value, only the lives of family and friends supersede. (It is impossible to hold the life of a stranger as dear as the life of someone loved… It is outside our nature).

So if the media would act maturely, the government would react with perspective, society would grieve respectfully and political factions would allow a tragedy to go to waste, so to speak, our society would be less violent and far less prone to this kind of tragedy. Unfortunately, our media is what it is, our government acts as it acts and society is still mired in the archaic notion, that the lives of the Elite are far more valuable, than the lives of the plebian masses.

Posted in Group Politics, media, Mercy, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

One of Two Positions

Posted on January 13, 2011 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that there are really only two positions, when you boil the arguments down, between communists, progressives, socialists and their nemesis the classical liberal or neo conservative. The winnowed down argument is simply this; Either we people need a benevolent overlord to keep us protected and safe from ourselves or we are capable of making our own decisions and have little need of a “benevolent” overlord.

This is the contention that Weimar Germany argued against the national socialists. The National socialists position was that the nature of democracy is such that people will always politic for their self interest against the interests of the whole. This inevitably leads to a collapse of the economy as they had just experienced. The National socialists argued, they would be a benevolent overlord, and protect the interests of the whole. Sometimes at the cost to a faction but always to the advantage of the whole.

The same or similar arguments have been used historically to trick people out of their liberty. When Darius discovered that the Magi had fooled the Persians there was a lively debate as to the future government of the Persian empire. Darius argued that since a monarchy had served the Persian people so well in expanding their empire it should be maintained. He then proposed a contest to determine the new king, cheated, and became king. Then lost most of an army attacking the Scythians.

In these two instances, the future tyrant argued, effectively, that the people needed a benevolent overlord, to keep them safe. The people went along and were rewarded with bloodshed and death. Literally, rivers of blood, have flowed from those decisions. In my world view, that is a negative outcome, and per William James philosophy of pragmatism, and the idea should be discarded. But for some reason there are still people who take this stand.

Communists, progressives and socialists agree, that people need a benevolent overlord, to protect and keep us safe… from ourselves. That is a basic premise of their philosophies. To deny it, shows a great miscomprehension of the philosophy, in which you hold, else the arguer is using spurious logic.

Of course if rivers of blood, destroyed cities and ethnic cleansing, are an acceptable price to pay, to get rid of the dominant paradigm, there is another factor you should take into account. That is, the people in charge before the revolution are often the same after the revolution. Sometimes names change, but the Elite play revolving chairs, but instead of taking away a chair two are added. Only the most virtuous are culled in a revolution the most corrupt are safe.

Some people, who are communists, progressives and socialists, have the opinion that the people of the world, in the aggregate, have it too good. Especially in the US. Our high standard of living should be lowered. The pitiful standard of living in all of the nations controlled by communists, progressives and socialists, and others with the same basic philosophies, show, in living color, how the Elite want everyone to live… Well everyone except them…

For example; The standard of living in Venezuela is about to crash. The crash is inevitable, being staved off awhile by the continued seizing of private property. Property that the dictator squanders, going out to eat with the money. The infrastructure in Venezuela is decrepit from the misapplication of the vast amount of money, the government had, at it’s disposal. Instead of being sent to improve the oil infrastructure, roads, electric grid, telephone/internet grid water, sewer and gas. Which are valid things government can invest in… Buying the loyalty of the people was the use of the funds at Hugo’s hand. Buying loyalty works well in the short term but we’ll see how long lived it is when this crash plays out. I’m betting Hugo will start a war to get out of it for awhile longer…

What about the alternative? Letting people be self sufficient, free of coercion from the State, free in person, property and ideas… Basically the ideals of the enlightenment. Well, the lot of Man was lifted from lower than dogs live today, much lower, to heated homes, running-heated water, cars, lights, we have come from a state of perpetual want to a state of perpetual surplus. Pragmatically and empirically we can see, which argument, benevolent tyranny or liberty, is the closer representation of supreme truth… Yet the debate rages on…

Posted in Group Politics, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment