BP Disaster in the Gulf

Posted on June 13, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the reason punishment is meted out, is to ensure that a given negative action, taken by a perpetrator, is not repeated. Punishment is a means to stop a cause. Punishment is not a means to enrich government. It is not a means to increase the power of a political Elite nor is it a means to keep a group down.

Another important factor to take into account is the actual perpetrator should be the one punished. Punishing an innocent bystander is not effective at stopping behavior in a person who has no morals. To be effective, punishment must be meted out to the perpetrator. To do otherwise renders it utterly ineffective.

Take the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It continues to be a politicized environmental catastrophe. News reports indicate that millions of barrels of oil have been released into the water. Underwater plumes of oil are fouling dolphins and coral. Beaches are in dire threat of being overrun with oil and tar. The entire ecosystem in the gulf is reeling under the weight of this disaster.

There are now reports that BP had a culture of intimidation when it came to bringing up safety concerns. Employees who voiced a safety question were routinely intimidated and harassed by management. This in direct conflict with every manual and the corporate safety philosophy. I.e.… Safety before production.

Many are calling for punishing BP. Withholding future leases in US waters. Perhaps stopping present leases and forcing BP to pay for all the environmental cleanup as well as huge fines. Perhaps to the point of bankrupting the company to make an example of it.

Who would be punished in this scenario? The shareholders of the company. BP is a dividend paying company, so, it is primarily held by retirees. I suspect retirees in Briton. So all the punishments put forward so far have been financial against BP. The only interests damaged in this scenario are those of retirees. Innocent bystanders…

Would the managers that created the, anti safety, corporate environment be punished? No… probably not. Under the most draconian scenario they would have to get another job. (No other scenario has a negative consequence). With a background in oil and production they would probably get a lateral transfer to another company. Those who have the most hubris will probably get promotions at another company. Where they can spread their insidious effect on the safety mindset to another company… like a virus.

I personally don’t think this would help improve the safety of oil drilling in US waters. In fact I imagine that it could make matters worse. The incentives line up that way. No matter how draconian government treats BP it will not lessen the likelihood of a future catastrophe.

So what to do? Well here’s a thought… Punish the people that created the corporate attitude minimizing safety. Criminally punish the managers that caused the disaster… What incentive would this set up for future corporations drilling in US waters?

Corporations are made up of human beings. Self interested maximizes. The managers who have made it to the top are generally pretty crafty. To effect the way a corporation works you have to effect the way the managers think. If a manager thinks, with no malevolence, that safety should suffer to production, that manager should have an example of another who thought the same thing. If that example is a promotion what is the incentive? If the example is, quality time in jail, what incentive does this set? Moreover what is the aggregate corporate incentive, in the future, towards safety?

The means to protect the environment is not to bankrupt BP… It is to criminally charge the managers that set up the corporate ethos that production trumps safety. In direct contravention of BP’s stated policy.

Get the incentives right and this will never happen again. Get the incentives wrong and you insure a repeat.

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Thousands of Years of History… Have we Learned Anything?

Posted on June 10, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that when a nation pretends a crime was not committed by a leader because it would have to act… puts that nation in great peril.

If a powerful political leader was to commit a crime. Clearly and obviously… Like bribing another politician with a position in government for some favor. This is obviously not in the public good. Clearly it is (or should be) a violation of law. And it undermines the concept of meritocracy in government. Then that politician should be treated as the law requires.

To let that politician get away with some lame excuse like they are ignorant of the law or everyone does it is to guarantee that laws will be broken in the future with greater harm to the body politic.

To argue that the politician is ignorant of the law and thus cannot be held to it makes a mockery of law. If the person who writes the law and enacts the law cannot know it. And therefore cannot be held to it. How much more unfair is it to hold the average citizen to it? If the law is so complex and arcane that a lawgiver cannot know it then it is impossible for a citizen to know it. How then do you hold citizens to law they cannot know? Try playing a game where your opponent knows the rules but you don’t. Now don’t even hold them to the rules you know… how would that turn out?

To argue that everyone does it is to argue that everyone is corrupt. If that is the case society has profound problems. But no one who uses this argument, in government, ever gives examples. If they did then the other politicians would be prosecuted. Like a gang of drug dealers. If one is caught… would he get away with saying… “everyone does it.” If he did give examples, the drug enforcement unit will swoop down, and arrest them. But the first would still face prosecution. Why is it that we expect more from drug dealers than we do our leaders?

Some argue, “well, you have the vote.” Assuming the people in question actually have suffrage and it is fairly counted. So using an analogy, if a baseball player has a contract that expires every three years. He commits some crime in his first year. The team has the option, in three years, to fire him? Does that make sense to you? Again, in this case, we hold our leaders to a lower standard that we do someone who chases a ball around a field for a living.

When people in power misuse their power. We all suffer. But how much more egregious when a politician abuses his power in public? With no negative consequences?

So, given the profound negative impact of not holding our leaders to the law. Law that we are held to. Why do we withhold consequences from the actions of our leaders? Because we personally know our leaders. We may not actually have met them but we know them personally. We voted for them. We might have pounded pavement for them. We have sunk cost in them. So we have empathy for them…. Empathy that is not shared. For every act of mercy visited on a leader ten million acts of injustice are visited on the people.

Look at Tarquinius Superbus. Despite his arbitrary evils he was exiled not executed. In fact even in exile he visited evil on Rome. But still lived. The pattern has been repeated through history.

Shouldn’t we finally put a stop to it?

Or have we remained motionless in three thousand years… and are happy to remain?

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You Are What You Think

Posted on June 6, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that you are what you think. The more a person dwells on a single subject the more their minds form to that subject. The mind being very plastic.

So when the German people in the 1920’s and 1930’s were inculcated that all their problems were the fault of the Jews and Gypsies… they dwelt on the subject. It was in the air all the time in that era and place. The German societal myth warped. Bringing about the conditions where the Gypsies were wiped out with no one left to remember them. Far worse than the Armenians or Jews. The Gypsies were annihilated.

This doesn’t mean that the German people were bad… The philosophy they followed was bad. Because they thought, to the exclusion of other things, on race.

Good intentions can be turned to bad results this way. When a person dwells on some injustice, to the exclusion of other things, it warps their minds. Their mind folds into compliance with the notion. It takes away their sense of magnitude and relativity. You and I feel that what we dwell on has more import than it actually may have. The simple act of thinking about a subject can make the subject more important to us than it really is.

So a person who is obsessed with the injustice to a group eventually gives this injustice godhood. It consumes them and they eventually can think of nothing else without extreme effort. What impact on their lives do you think this has?

When you feel this strongly about an injustice, even though it may have happened long ago, it is easy to believe that injustice must be met with injustice. Do to the former perpetrator that which he did. Even though the perpetrator may be long dead. If this is the case… find a suitable group to mete your injustice on. There is never a lack of suitable people to mete out injustice to. Look around the world.

Why do the Jews mete out injustice to the Palestinians? Why do the Palestinians mete out injustice to the Jews? Why did and do the Hutu’s mete out injustice to the Tutsi’s? And Vice versa? The pattern is repeated around the World in many forms and in many ways. The single common factor is that a group of people dwell on some injustice. This leads them to meet injustice with injustice.

So when we think about an injustice, A highly emotional thought, we tend to dwell on it. The more we dwell… Therefore it is in our best interest to try to keep balance. To meet injustice with injustice is to immortalize injustice.

Does anyone think that the annihilation of the Gypsies led to less injustice in the world? What about the Hutu’s annihilation of the Tutsi’s’? No it has only led to further injustice. Cambyses son of Cyrus the Great moved whole nations of people in forced migrations. To satisfy his sense of justice. Did this result in less injustice in the World? No it didn’t. And it never will.

Chuang Chuo the doctor of the Tao said;

“A Penumbra asked a Shadow, saying, “There are times When you are moving, times when you are at rest: times when you sit down, times when you stand up. Why do you not work out one method and stick to it?” The Shadow said, “Am I dependent on something else for being what I am? (if so) is the something else on which I am dependent… itself dependent on something else for being what it is?”

One cause leading to another in an endless stream of injustices. The only way to stop the results are to interrupt the causes… To meet injustice with injustice is never righteous.

If you dwell, on racism, you become a racist… What is the Cause in that sentence?

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Stone Walls and Government

Posted on June 3, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that when you build a stone wall it is important to start with small stones for the base. As even as possible. They determine the foot print so they should be set within a bounded area. I usually use paint to denote the edges of the wall. Then the stones are placed to make a foundation within the bounds…

The next course is where you can be more creative. In this course it is important to select rocks that will set between the lower rocks so that their weight is resting on at least two stones. Another important selection point is that at least two, but three is better, should pile to the same height. This allows the next course to set on at least two, or more, stones below. You continue in this vein until the correct height is achieved.

Some tricks are to make sure the flat faces are pointing outside… to give a more pleasing look. Mix the sizes as much as possible. And fill in large voids with crushed and washed stone. This is the theme in building stone walls. They are planned, they are interlocking, (one on two and two on one), and if they are well built they can last for centuries.

The function of a stone wall is to separate an area from another area. In this it is useful to know the level of separation needed. This will enlighten us as to the height to build it. If the function is purely aesthetic then a low square wall is attractive. If we want to get fancy we can build a wall to the Fibrunacci rectangle. This makes the wall even more appealing to the eye.

Governments are like stone walls in that they have a foundation (constitution), they have structure, (bureaucracy) and they have function.

The Constitution is supposed to bound in the government. Like the paint and string bound in the stone wall a constitution is supposed to bound in government. The efficient function of a stone wall is negatively effected by making it larger than it need be. If a wall needs to be three courses wide… It is most efficient to make it three courses wide. But it will have no positive effect (on function) to make it four or five courses wide. That will only take room that could have been productively used (as tillage or livestock) to be tied up under a wall. Government is no different. If the constitution is ignored and the government grows outside the limits put on it by the constitution it looses efficient function.

The bureaucracy of government is like the courses up the wall. If they are poorly placed and the stones all come to a different height then the wall will be deficient. The stones will be piled one on another. Like columns of stones side by side. This is very unstable and will seldom last for more than one winter. Like this, poorly thought out bureaucracy is unstable, and seldom utile.

Lets say a stone wall is poorly constructed… It falls over. Is it more efficient to haul more stones in and re-pile the old stones in the same deficient way? Then build a supplementary wall adjacent to the first (using the same shoddy workmanship) to bolster the first?

Of course not. It is the height of insanity. It is more work for a less efficient and less stable product. The wall will only have more stone to re-pile next year. Unless the wall is torn down and rebuilt. Parliamentary government is like this. It falls over regularly and must be re-piled.

Now what if we have a perfectly useable stone wall. It is effective at keeping our livestock from our garden. But we want to make it even better. Does it make sense to add to our wall taking up valuable garden space? Only if the utility gained outweighs the loss in productive land. What about expanding into our pasture? The same calculation should be done there. (For the farmer to be rational). It seems that the base (constitution) should not be overstepped else function is harmed.

So the only way to expand our wall is to go up. (Add to the bureaucracy). But a stone wall is only stable if the height doesn’t exceed the width by fifty percent. (In my experience) beyond that walls become unstable and require more and more maintenance. Government is no different. Too much bureaucracy and government becomes a burden to society.

From this analogy we can glimpse the in our minds eye the ratio of government size structure and footprint to it’s effect on society. It provides us with a template.

I hope it helps…

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Individual Sovereignty

Posted on May 30, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the magnitude of the concept of individual sovereignty is very underappreciated. This is a relatively new philosophy. It was codified into law under the US Constitution only two hundred years ago. One of the reasons most philosophies trend tyrannical is that they place sovereignty at a higher level.

Philosophies that espouse Groupism place sovereignty at the group level. They are more concerned with the group, (race, sexual preference, class, etc…). They sample, categorize and place a person in the appropriate group. Then treat them as such. Groups are easy to handle conceptually. But, when the concepts that are envisioned by the groupist are implemented, they always result in the lowering of all of society. Be it economically, politically, or religiously.

Because when sovereignty is raised back to a level higher than the individual… the individual resents it. And, moreover, is right to do so. It is the individual that feels the bite of cold in the weather. Pain is individually sovereign. The motivation to it should be as well.

An unbiased observer would look at the state of affairs on our planet and come to the conclusion that, not only human beings are given individual sovereignty but, the beasts in the fields and forests do as well. If this is true, that even the beasts in the fields and forests have individual sovereignty… and there is a God, then it is the observed will of God that we have individual sovereignty.

Witness that every time sovereignty is moved from the individual to the group, King, President for life, city state, nation, etc… it is done so by violence or the implicit threat of violence. The violence is couched in the most pleasing terms. The greater good and all that. Even as, for the greater good, a group of human beings are exterminated… Under the aegis of anti racism.

What is the font of the American economic growth machine? Some argue that it is the diversity of the American people. But averaged growth by decade has been fairly steady from it’s inception. Even when diversity was very low… Hessians and British… Making diversity’s impact on economic growth less definite.

Some argue the American political system. They wouldn’t be far from wrong. But they would still miss the target. It isn’t the system itself but the societal myth that the system’s birth set up. Namely that sovereignty is at the individual level… Think for a moment what kind of incentives this sets up in a society that adopts it.

If you, as an individual, believe that you will be able to keep what you earn. It is a positive incentive to earn. If you believe that your real property is safe from seizure it is an incentive to own real property. If you believe that your business will not be shaken down it is an incentive to own a business… The list of positive incentives is endless. Positive incentives that work on the individual level to improve the lives of everyone.

What about societal debt some might argue. Doesn’t everyone owe a societal debt due to our social nature? The groupist likes to trip us up here. This line of argument is rife with opportunities to change the subject. Never arguing one subject to conclusion. They seek to lure the individualist’s bulldozer into their groupist swamp of argument alteration..

There is a good response however. We make up our societal debt by being productive. Beyond that society can ask nothing. If we choose to give to this or that it is our choice… we are sovereign. Our success is societies success. As long as a person or corporation is not actively holding people down, (monopoly, negative externalities, wages and hiring is based on merit, etc…) their success should be cheered. Because it is societies success. In fact societies that have individual sovereignty have higher rates of alms giving than societies that have sovereignty at a higher level. Universally.

There is a belief that groups have wisdom. Markets have been set up to predict everything from North Korea’s next violent outburst to who will win the Super Bowl. By tapping into the wisdom of large unbiased groups motivated to be right. (The motivation is supplied by a monetary payout if the individual is correct). Leads to strikingly accurate predictions.

This is from the individual acting on his or her own behalf. The individual motivated to make the correct decision, in the aggregate, are correct more often than not. This holds true solving for many factors.

But when the group of sovereign individual decision makers is turned into a single person, or smaller group, (sovereignty is moved to a higher level), the likely hood of a good decision is lowered. Especially when you make the incentives, for the deciding group or person… pernicious.

When a society taps into this vast resource of potential it is setting up a structure that is geared to win. One where the nap of the fur is up. Not down. All it need do is build the concept of individual sovereignty into their society and governmental structure.

But that is harder than it looks…

The Elite have to lower their power…

That is rarely done.

Posted in economy, Group Politics, Law, Mercy, philosophy, polictics of class envy, Societal Myth | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Relative Benefit, Relative Harm

Posted on May 26, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that government should explicitly take into account the relative benefit of a given action. Passing a law for example.

Take a man who is starving. He comes across putrid meat. Is the relative benefit of eating the meat such that he will be less starved after or will he be so sick that the harm from eating the meat will outweigh the benefit? Maybe sufficient cooking will render the meat safe. Perhaps not… [from Mohist doctrine]

The decision is important and as much information as possible must be gathered before it can be made. The human being will use intuition in this instance. Smell the meat and intuit if cooking it sufficiently will make it safe. A misstep in the decision making process and he could die…

Government makes decisions with as great a moment. But government never really weighs the benefit and harm. They only look at the projected benefit. But as we saw with our analogy, there is potential harm. To ignore the harm is to ensure catastrophe.

But that is the job of the party not in power… to point out the potential harm from pending legislation…. Some will argue. And they wouldn’t be far from wrong. But, politics makes strange bedfellows, is an apt saying. When the interests of politicians align…

So if we cannot rely on the opposition party to point out the potential harm in pending legislation what about the media? The media’s role is exactly to do this very thing. But unfortunately the media has become “unbiased“. They have replaced their true faces with a veneer of fairness. While it is not in human nature to be unbiased… they claim to be. An impossibility. Therefore… Foregoing their responsibility even as they pretend to uphold it.

The last two paragraphs have been minor causes of a full examination of the potential harm from not thoroughly examining pending legislation. They work as a unit, sometimes, and separately other times. This loosely coupled mechanism is like a capacitor in an electrical circuit.

A capacitor is like a tank. It can be empty or full. So if you put an empty tank in a fuel line as fuel flows to it’s destination it must fill the tank before it can move on. After the tank is full the flow of fuel can go on. If the flow is reversed the tank has a reserve of fuel before air is sucked in. It buffers the flow of fuel in our analogy. A capacitor does exactly this in an electrical circuit. And by doing so it acts as a buffer to electrical current. In the case of the opposition/media mechanism it acts to buffer the true cost/benefit examination from being done.

Without a relative benefit analysis being done… another example of normalizing deviancy, government necessarily lowers the lot of Man. Every time poorly thought out legislation takes effect the harm often outweighs the benefit. So government’s reaction is to pass more poorly thought out legislation that may, or probably does not, help.

Like a gambler. He wins the first few hands and is up. He continues and over time he looses all his money. Even though the house has a very slim margin of advantage.

Because people react emotionally. In gambling, the stock market and in politics… Meat anyone?

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Calderon’s Hubris

Posted on May 23, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that Felipe Calderon should be deeply embarrassed. To be the head of a government that has done such a poor job that people want to leave in droves. Fleeing the violence, poverty and government corruption. A human hearted man would be ashamed…

But Calderon is not. He is unabashed. In fact, he even has the gall to go to the nation that is feeding, clothing, housing and otherwise providing for his citizens, and chastising it. Chastising it for not being friendly enough. This guy is the stereotypical hypocrite.

The laws against illegal immigration in Mexico are draconian. The laws regarding legal immigration are draconian as well. Add to this the utter corruption in the Mexican police force. Immigrants cannot receive welfare in Mexico. Especially illegal immigrants. Immigrants in Mexico have to have outside income or be employed by the Mexican state. They are not allowed to have jobs in Mexico.

The US media have been rife with stories about older people going into Mexico to buy prescription drugs. (That were prescribed to them). After the pharmacist sells the US citizen the drugs the pharmacist then calls the police. The police intercept the old folks. Arrest them. Then ransom them back to their children.

The total lack of opportunity in Mexico is directly related to the utterly corrupt and (fortunately less) socialistically inclined government. One example of the foolishness is that the Mexican government has nationalized all it’s oil. The Government run extraction company is extraordinarily inefficient. The ready access to oil money funds more corruption in the Mexican government.

Had the Mexican government went the capitalist route a (possibly Mexican) company would lease the land from the government to extract the oil. The company would be held responsible for environmental problems. The company would be responsible for cleaning up after the oil has been extracted and the company would be responsible to keep the infrastructure up to date. Another advantage of the capitalistic approach would have been better and more thorough geological research. More importantly… less money would be underground to contribute to governmental corruption.

The violence in Mexico is the result of the utter corruption in the Mexican government. Even as Calderon pointed his finger at the US for problems his government has created he disregarded the three fingers pointing back at him.

Put it this way… If the easy access to weapons in the US leads to violence in it’s neighbors… why is Canada so quiet? If keeping drugs illegal creates violence in neighboring countries… Why is Canada so quiet? Huge amounts of Marijuana come into the US from Canada.

So is the problem really somewhere else Mr. Caldron? Or is it closer to home?

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Catastrophic Desisions

Posted on May 20, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that government’s propensity to normalize deviancy threatens us all. Due to Government’s ability to deliver catastrophe on a society.

Normative deviancy is a sociological term that describes why some groups make catastrophically wrong decisions. It is a theory that takes into account the environment in which a decision is made. Basically, When a group of people are set up there is usually some thought put into keeping complexity low, keeping connections loose, ensuring rigorous debate, etc… but as time goes on small deviations become the norm. Then small deviations become larger then become the new norm. Until catastrophic failure of the group or decision-making process takes place. Catastrophic failure becomes inevitable.

The group could be the House of Representatives. Some of the deviations we see. (that have apparently become the norm) are, not reading bills before voting on them, protecting members that take bribes, reacting before sufficient facts are in, and putting a faction’s good over the good of society. These are not all the examples I can come up with but the list becomes tedious.

Not reading bills before voting. How could this ever go wrong? No potential for catastrophic failure of the decision making process there…

But seriously, lawmakers don’t even read ten page bills before voting. This has great potential to be used against an unwary congressman or congresswoman. People vote for a person because they believe that that person will make good decisions regarding government. How can a person make a decision about a bill they have not read?

When a lawmaker is so sloppy, about his job that they don’t read bills they are voting on, it says they don’t take their job seriously. When people see that the leaders in society don’t take their jobs seriously when their jobs are so important, lawmakers pay is over $174000 a year, with benefits better than anything in the private sector, so if a congressman has so little regard that he doesn’t even take the minimum effort in doing his job… why should we? Imagine the subconscious pernicious incentive this is to society… on top of the potential for abuse of the system.

Protecting members that take bribes, sexually bother pages and aides, are ignorant of tax law, ship horses through the US mail calling it official business, cashing in postal vouchers for cash to buy drugs, drunk driving leaving the scene of the accident death resulting, the list is endless. With this caliber of people running our government how can we go wrong? Blackmail is only one of the potential problems that could lead to catastrophic decisions that could result.

Jumping to conclusions before all the relevant data is in. Some examples are when rep. John Murtha, (God rest his soul), Accused the US Marines of war crimes. The facts came out that the US Marines were innocent. But the damage had been done. The war effort had been undermined. President Obama even acknowledged that he didn’t know the facts then attacked a police officer. Again wrong. Over and over members of our government publicly make statements without sufficient knowledge to make them. Over and over they are proven wrong. How many of you have read of heard the story of the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf? Being wrong over and over undermines one’s credibility. When it is an elected member of the government it undermines the credibility of the government.

Putting the good of a faction of society over the good of all of society. This is not a new problem. Madison wrote about it in the Federalist Papers, #10. Faction is pernicious because it is necessary for the political process. But even as the power of faction impels political power it undermines that power by corrupting it. Often putting the good of a faction of society over the good of all society is in the political interest of a party. Like illegal immigration. Everyone knows in their heart what is right. (fix immigration law to reflect the need, seal the boarder to prevent more illegal immigration and enforce the law) But every one in the political process wants to game the system. They want to reap the political favor of a potentially large faction. So the interests of society are stepped on. The result is that human beings in the USA are treated as subhuman… to enhance the political power of the Elite that are courting them. No irony there.

The private sector goes to great lengths to prevent these types of things from occurring. Perhaps because the threat of jail is ever present in the private sector but is totally absent the government. That problem is answered by the NUMA… Perhaps because the private sector must succeed or fail. (Unless it is politically favored. Then the taxpayers will bail them out. Even as the lawmakers, in the back pockets of those firms, vilify them… I think I hear Braer Rabbit, “Please don’t throw me in that briar patch.”)

Another possibility is that the dross floats to the top.

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Progressivism and Education

Posted on May 16, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the way our children are taught has a great influence on them in their adult lives. Education is a means to not only teach children to read, write and do arithmetic but is a means to civilize them.

American schools today have taken a new path. They have eschewed teaching reading, writing, arithmetic and logic and have replaced them with progressive propaganda. Anti American adjectives like imperialism are often used to describe the USA. These are definitions taken directly from the Manifesto of the Communist Party and anti American Soviet handbooks. The schools teach homosexuality and the mechanics of it. They teach that God is dead. One of their favorite lessons today is that the American Constitution is a living breathing document. What do all these new evil societal myths have in common?

They serve to demean the children. They all serve to make children believe that simply the color of their skin determines if they are good or evil. This is not a very inclusive philosophy. But it has always been the philosophy of the progressives. Propaganda to the contrary aside…

I watched a show on PBS today, Need To Know. The show had a long segment about the Texas school board’s revue of new textbooks. The thrust of the piece was that a few members are wrong and bad by trying to force their conservative view of society on the whole country. Because Texas buys so many textbooks that the whole industry caters to their needs and wants. The news story never mentioned if California or New York have a similar effect on the textbook industry… At least that angle was never explored. I wonder… Would California drag the industry further to the right or the radical left… And if that had any bearing on the coverage of California’s effect on textbook slant.

Of course a hit piece on a conservative in the unbiased media is proof of their lack of bias. The show, Need To Know, also talked about the Texas Freedom Network, an organization that monitors the right’s effect on school curriculum. Amazingly this progressive organization agrees with the unbiased PBS and thinks America should be characterized as imperialist. PBS didn’t mention if there are any organizations that monitor the left… Why would there be?

The unbiased media today use evolution as a straw man argument. They constantly hammer that people of faith are bad because they deny evolution. They equate evolution deniers to holocaust deniers. The argument is used to as a means to disqualify any argument made by the right whether or not evolution is brought up. If I argue that The United States has liberated almost as many people in the twentieth century as the communists have murdered… The left argues that I deny evolution. The unbiased media agree. And the argument is changed to whether or not I believe in evolution. It has become a tool of the progressives to change the argument.

Changing the subject is a underhanded way to keep an opponent in a debate off his feet. It is the job of a good moderator to keep arguers on point. But unfortunately with the media being so unbiased only the right is kept on point the left is given free reign to move the debate as they see fit.

What is the inevitable outcome of this? The lowering of debate. Which leads to keeping the people in the dark. Which leads to the lowering of the quality of decisions made by the American people. (Exemplified in the last election). Which leads to the lowering of the lot of the American people. Which leads to the lowering of the lot of all Mankind. Because, in this World, we are all economically connected .

As long as the progressives control, the media, education and both political parties, our fortunes will continue to go down. Only until we have a media that is actually unbiased instead of pretending to be unbiased will the cancer that is progressivism be exposed by the light…

Only foul things grow in the dark… Progressivism withers in the light…

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Pragmatism

Posted on May 13, 2010 by john

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that most people are pragmatists. We have to be. To lack pragmatism is to ensure future insanity. Because when you live in an insane world you must either be pragmatic about it or go crazy.

Since most people are pragmatic we seek to get along in the world with as little interference as possible. As Thrasymachus said. Most people do not want to impose on others. But they are afraid of being imposed upon. That is why most people like the idea of justice… So by his measure most people are good. There are others who are bad. (I.e. They want to impose their will on others).

We are pragmatic in many ways. We add up the costs and benefits to most things we engage in. This is a form of pragmatism. We sometimes don’t fight the good fight because we have determined that it would result in diminishing returns.

To be the avatar of pragmatism one would have to be immune to all the pitfalls that await all of us. Like the sunk cost effect, group think, etc… We all vary in our pragmatism. (Or maybe we vary in our assessment of the cost benefit to a certain action).

Pragmatism breeds happiness. People who are pragmatic give up their anger quickly. They are less prone to hopelessness. These are the antithesis to pragmatism. Because to be angry has a very high cost both in health and relationships. The payoff is not as distinct. So pragmatism says, stop that which give us diminishing returns. To be angry for too long has such diminishing returns that the pragmatist eschews it. Hopelessness is the same. To be hopeless has great cost with no benefit. So why do it?

But pragmatism has costs as well. For example, take a good person living among those who are bad. Machiavelli says that a good man must necessarily come to ruin among so many that are bad. To be pragmatic in such a situation is to become bad enough to fit in. Mencius talked about this very thing.

Mencius said that the “Jen” man (gentleman, lord, Brahman, enlightened man, etc…) strikes the golden mean. When the jen man lives among many that are bad he doesn’t go to the extreme of bad. He seeks the middle ground in that bad land. When the jen man finds himself living among saints, again he looks to the mean of the society that he lives in. Mencius said that Mo Ti would run himself into the ground to help anyone. While Sang Yang wouldn’t pull a loose thread from his cloak although it save humanity. They went too far, claimed Mencius. Aristotle was curiously similar in his philosophy of the mean.

Pragmatic people do the same. Seek the mean in the society they live in. Pragmatic people look at their leaders today (and historically), and see people who make law to benefit their friends, making tax law and don’t pay taxes, regulating banks to make bad loans to people they know cannot pay back the loans then blaming the banks for the failures, have illegal aliens for maids, nannies, gardeners to save money but claim to be hard on illegal immigration, To name a very few examples. A pragmatists may not like what he or she sees. We may not want to emulate the behavior. But pragmatism, Machiavelli, Mencius, and Aristotle all say in unison, “follow the mean.” when the rulers are this corrupt society must be corrupt. Like virtue, corruption flows down from the leaders to the led.

Unfortunately the culture that we find ourselves in is a wretched as it can be. Corruption is endemic in the Elite in government, industry, entertainment and in society. They have been so corrupt for so long it has moved deeply into our society. Political corruption oozes out of government and onto everything government touches. Like a child, the grubbier the hands, the more they want to touch. They even have the gall to call evil good and good evil. Simply by changing the language, abortion becomes choice, freedom of religion becomes separation of church and state, freedom of speech is now too much information, the list goes on and on. I am sure you can think of quite a few I have left out… if you try.

This all adds up to an insane society.

How does this apply to the International Capitalist Party? Pragmatism is the cornerstone of our philosophy. Pragmatic in our view of humanity, pragmatic in our opinions about how to best effect positive change in the human condition, but, not pragmatic in our goal. To be pragmatic about a political goal is, not to fall into the status quo, it is to set a new status quo. Progressives, communists and socialists are pragmatic in their goal, total government, but not in their assessments of people… Unless most people do want to live under a tyranny, in poverty, with no voice or ability to change the situation…

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