My New Years Resolution Right Up To 2017

Here is my new years wish right up until 2017.  I said as much when I entitled it last year around this time.  And yes, it is still my new years wish.  May we find the humility that brings true strength.

2013 seems to be a year I shouldn't miss.  Though life's experience thus far has taught me there always seems to be some memories to cherish even in hard times.

I met a 1st cousin of my mother's who has an amazingly sharp mind in spite of frequently forgetting what was said just a minute or two ago.  The contrast between her short term and long term memories was amazing and I felt just as amazingly fortunate to have met her.  I know, how many times could I use the word 'amazing' there, but it seems quite fitting in spite of whatever literary critique it may attract.

I saw lightning bugs which I hadn't seen since my childhood, and for the first time I saw the attic bedrooms that my father and his siblings used when they were growing up.  I've decided I want an attic like that myself some day.  Nothing like having three or four bedrooms right there in case company comes over.

And oh yes, the public's perception of the president has finally begun to come down.  We in the United States in general seem to have an entirely unjustified reverence for whoever we elect president.  It's as if somehow by electing a president the nation bestows the dignity and honor of the collective populace upon that person.  

It's collectivist nonsense at its finest.  By essentially worshiping a president we worship ourselves, and even worse than worshiping ourselves as individuals, we worship ourselves as a collective we call the "American people".  As fine a country as the United States may be and as unusually common is nobility amongst its people, worship is inappropriate.  Especially when it is of any collective.

Too many of us read way to much meaning into the fact that the president is the only nationally elected public office.  Instead of seeing democracy as a lesser of evils that only represents at best a momentary glimmer of a generally vague public sentiment, too many of us see the president as the people's avatar.

This I suspect explains why approval polls consistently put any congress below the same ratings of their contemporary president.  It's because many people see the president as the human embodiment of the nation as a whole and to assign the president blame for things would be like accepting the blame themselves.  And it is human nature to want to blame others first.

Though I would hope the current president's drop in the polls would actually translate into Americans accepting responsibility for our problems, I suspect that rather they are finding ways to transform Barack Obama from their avatar into their scapegoat.

In other words I look on this good news from 2013 with a scant eye.  If he continues to slide in the polls right onto 2016 I fear the same group of foolish avatar-makers will just find themselves a new one.

What we really need is someone like George Washington who will step in and announce to the American people that no one person can or should be as important as we keep trying to make our presidents.  And that it is not that an individual can ever be so important, but that the individual always is even more so.

Can we hope for that much wisdom in such a high office?  That is my new years wish.

I wish you a happy new year.

Merry Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas to all my readers, and here's a link to a video of a great combination of time and place.

A Helen Christmas

Anything I can do to help my friends and family in this wonderful place.

Merry Christmas from Eddie Fontaigne

A Day The World Was Wrong : Except Honduras Was Right

On December 1st, 2009 the people of Honduras scored a victory for themselves by showing
with their votes they did not want former president Manuel Zelaya to be able to run over
their constitution.  More importantly they struck a huge blow to ugly-elitism world-wide.

 Politicians around the world have thought too much of themselves for centuries and in
2009 we saw a humble but proud little nation defy them and win.  They did this by
electing Porfino Lobo president with 55% of the vote.

Even as the United States state department was backing away from its previous
anti-Honduran-constitution stance, elements of the world press were still referring to
Zalaya's ouster as a military coup 

(http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/1/hondurans_divided_after_coup_backer_wins ).  This in spite of his ouster being ordered by both the Supreme Court and congress. 

The world's politicians and their sycophants in the press were still feeling the sting. 
A politician with apparent good intentions defied his nation's legislature, courts, and
constitution and ended up standing in his pajamas on the tarmac of a Costa Rican
airfield, his country moving on without him.  

The inevitable evolution of society towards a socialist collectivism had not just been defied by the tiny nation of Honduras, it's proponents had been humiliated.  Zalaya in ankle chains in his pajamas had become the new symbol to replace the tared and feathered tax collectors in pre-revolution Massachusetts.  

International socialism was potently portrayed as very possibly being on the wrong side of 
history just as absolute monarchy had been a few centuries earlier.

So let those who share our values, who respect individual dignity and see the value of the rule of law, never forget that day.

Long live liberty!

And On This Day Some Good Quotes To Understand

This blog is full of my informed opinions and analysis from week to week, but today I've decided to let some of my sources do all of the point-making for me.  This is, if no other reason, to demonstrate I don't just pull my ideas out of thin air and hope, by use of big words, people will take them seriously.  My ideas are the product of a lot of education and wise deference to wise individuals.  Below I will quote just a few and explain what each tells me.  You are are free to decide if I'm missing something or seeing anything that isn't there.  If you do see fault in any of it, please feel free to share in the comments sections at the end.

[This is by the way a re-post of an entry from about two years ago]

Here we go.

"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.  In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents." -- James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1788

That first sentence should speak volumes as I see it.  Power should always be distrusted, even if it seems to be your own.  The rest, after sorting out the semi-antiquated language, says something equally as important.  Government acts that infringe upon individual liberty should not just be stopped when it goes against the will and judgment of the people.  Much rather, they should be especially stopped precisely when they are the will of the people.  Madison is arguing clearly for minimal government as the only answer to the threat of tyranny.

"A pure democracy ... can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction.  A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party...  Hence it is that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." --  James Madison, Federalist No. 10

Democracy cannot be the only check on governmental power if we wish to protect the rights of life and property.  The "mischiefs of faction" that Madison refers to here are things like religious intolerance and class envy.  If majorities rule then minorities, which include the wealthy, the enlightened to such things as the wrongness of some common social practice such as slavery once was a common social practice, as well as people with harmless but different ways and ideas, these people will not be safe from oppression.  Life and property in a pure democracy are not safe.

Once again, Madison argues for minimal government.  Democracy can be a way to keep other power sources in check but it can't be allowed to simply replace those sources.  People who speak of democratically elected governments as if the democratic nature of their selection gives them all the authority they need are speaking very dangerously.  The limits on a government speak far more in favor of its legitimacy by modern liberal (i.e. classical liberal) standards than do the number of people who voted for it.  To suggest being democratically elected alone grants great authority is to suggest rights to life and property are trivial, rather than critically important as they are.

“Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria.  The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” -- Robert A Heinlein

I believe Heinlein's point here is that we make the mistake of defining people by their causes, when we should define them by the means they're willing to use to advance them.  Many modern American conservatives fall very clearly into that second group "who have no such desire" to see people "controlled".  I in fact aggressively oppose trying to control people.  My experience as a teacher tells me that attempting to control people is counterproductive.  And my convictions about individual rights tells me it's wrong.  Never the less I am socially conservative in terms of what I believe is right and wrong.  I support laws that prevent government from advancing causes that offend my morals, but I don't generally support laws that attempt to impose my morals on others.  Not only is there no point in forcing someone to do what I think is the right, but  doing so is itself morally wrong.

"Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us."
-- John Dickinson during the convention of Philadelphia

This is not a slap at reason.  If it were I wouldn't quote it as something that guides me.  The context was that of setting up a government, and in that context it is one more piece of many pieces of evidence that the founders of the United States wanted a minimal and limited government.  Let me explain.

It is not just fine but wise to reason out what one believes and what decisions we will make, but we are faulty vessels so to speak.  We can easily think ourselves out of good conclusions and into bad ones.  It isn't really reason itself that fails us, but us as vessels of reason.  Yet even with our faultiness it is still wise that we lean on reason in making our decisions.  If we make a mistake, we endure the consequences and move on and more often than not our command of reason will serve us well with enough practice, but the use of reason in governing is a very different thing.

Bad reasoning by government doesn't just effect those who made the decision, and often may not effect the decision maker at all.  Individuals can more easily limit the bad effects of their own decisions than they can those of government.  Getting even the most responsive of governments to end a bad policy is nowhere near as quick and easy as an individual ending their own bad policies.  One must first prove to the government that the policy is bad and if those in charge don't share in the bad consequences, well then it becomes all the more difficult.

What Dickinson was saying, I believe, is that government should base its policies and rules only on what we know works, not on theories or ideals, no matter how wonderful they may be.  Following this demands a minimal and limited government, since a government that only does what it knows will work cannot be one that tries to control others.  No government has ever successfully controlled its people's behavior, so at least until some evil experiment actually works, Dickinson's advice precludes trying.

Ending Note

Once again, if anyone thinks I'm missing the point of any of these quotes, please let me know, and please include some explanation.  Just because I have a lot of confidently stated opinions does not mean I lack an open mind.  It is by being open to the thoughts and ideas of others that I have arrived where I am.

Ferguson? Just More Reification To Me

Two years ago around this time I did a series of posts about logical fallacies.  One of those posts was one of my most read blog posts of all time.  It was about the regression fallacy.  You can find it listed to the left of this post near the top of the list of my most popular.  It was very relevant when it was written and continues to be.  I'd recommend a read of it to anyone who hasn't already. 

Today I've decided to re-post a discussion of another logical fallacy.  This time it will be on what is called reification or what is also called hypostatization.

Wikipedia defines it as follows;

"Reification (hypostatization) – a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea."

Now where do I see good examples of equating abstractions with things that are concrete or real?  Consider that I describe myself as an individualist and I'll give you three guesses.  The first two wont count.

Between individuals and groups, which is concrete and which is abstract?  Is it possible to find out a group you thought you were in doesn't actually exist?  Of course.  It's probably happened to most of the people who are reading this right now.  e.g. You were put on a committee that was cancelled before it ever met.  It never really existed.  Now is it possible that you don't exist?  I don't write to fictional abstract people so no.

Take that Descartes!  You read my blog therefore you are.  But seriously, the individual is as fundamental to the concrete as it gets.  Groups such as economic classes, racial groups, ethnic groups, religious groups, groups defined by gender or sexual preferences, nations, and communities, these are abstractions by comparison to individuals.

Of course I would be guilty of another logical fallacy if I were to tell you groups are just abstract beliefs or hypothetical constructs.  They are collections of concrete things, most specifically individuals so they are in that sense concrete too.  It's possible to gather a group together in a room with us and point them out without any need of imagination.

But there is still something there that is an abstract belief or hypothetical construct.  And that's the definition we used to determine that what we have before is a group.  Change that definition and we no longer have a group, or maybe we have more than one group, or one that extends beyond the room we're in.  That part is abstract and without both the abstract part and all the concrete parts that were essentially defined into it we don't have a group.

So when someone attempts to apply moral instructions intended for individuals to groups, such as in social justice, that someone becomes guilty of reification or hypostatization.  The same is true of people who pit economic classes or ethnic groups against each other by making it seem that the acts of one person against another is the same as actions of one group against another group, and thus the group they hope to get votes from should "stick it to" some other group.

And it's the fact that groups are half abstract and half concrete that makes this commonly practiced logical fallacy so easy to get away with.  The fact that only the individual is purely concrete becomes clouded in people's minds.  Many people who attempt to argue with the collectivists are accused of not caring about the individuals that make up the collectives when quite the opposite is true.

To understand today's world is to understand logical fallacies.  Here's a big one, reification.  The fallacy is that groups matter as much as individuals.  The truth is that only individuals are real and groups are just abstract groupings.  We must never forget who we should serve.