Tuesday, December 30, 2014

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.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

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

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

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!

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

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.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

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. 

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

A Day My Life Changed : A Re-Posting

[Thanksgiving in the United States can be a time of being busy with truly important things, family, friends, God, and checking ones own humility, as hard as that last part can be to grasp for even the most humble amongst us.  And I am very happy and thankful to say that I am able to concentrate on just those very things this week.  So I leave my readers with this re-post about an event that helped me to see more clearly one of the most important things we will ever be given responsibility for, that is to respect the individual dignity of others.  So enjoy the read if you haven't already done so, and if you have, I hope you get something of value out of it still.]

Some times I look back at my late and short teaching career and wonder if I ever should have done it. Perhaps, I consider, the time could have been better spent, say, getting my computer science degree sooner, or I could even have started to write sooner, but no. Without that experience there are certain very important things I never would have learned.

As a teacher I was driven to take an interest in the character and destiny of each of my students. I know it sounds a little corny, but what exactly is the universal job description teachers have? Are we not there to help our students by encouraging high character in them, and then to train them in what they need to know and master in order to achieve the personal goals that derives from that high character? These are the sorts of things only a teacher or parent is likely to ever commit to, and having never been a parent, teaching was the reason for me. So in spite of my normal tendency to simply allow fools to be fools, I was driven by a job description to try and save them.

I remember in particular one middle-school student of mine that was a free spirit. He was smart, got good grades on his assignments, and was generally respectful toward his teachers, but from the point of view of my lead teacher and the school's principal he was sorely lacking in two very important areas. He was terribly disorganized to the point that the contents of his desk often overflowed into other students' spaces. That really annoyed them, but the second area of lacking was what really worried them. He tended to be a loner. He seldom associated with other students and when he did, the other students would become annoyed with something he'd say or do. Nothing serious. They were little things I don't remember exactly, but like say playing four square and not seeming to try, or starting to do his imitation of a flying saucer sound. The only thing I do remember is that there was little to no consistency or pattern in these things. He might frustrate students not trying one day and then compete in earnest the next, or just not play on another. In a nut shell, he was not just a loner, but a very creative one.

The moment of my enlightenment came as I was grading papers after school and he and his parents were meeting in the next room with the principal and my lead teacher. I heard bits and pieces of what was being said at first. It was an old story. For years he had attended this K-8 school, and for years the faculty had worked with him on his two shortfalls. The parents said things I could tell they realized they had said several times before, but the teacher and the principal sounded more determined to make progress. They noted it seemed that none had been made.

The principal, a woman I had great respect for, was talking when suddenly this young 7th grade fellow shouted “shut up!”. I was horrified, both because he was being so extremely disrespectful and because I was worried for him and his future at the school. I was tempted to charge into the room, but wasn't sure what I could or would do, calm him down or scold him. I decided to stay at my grading work, but couldn't avoid hearing what was going on in the next room. He went on to tell them how it made him feel to be continually picked at, and asked them, still yelling and angry, to “just leave me alone!”. I heard adult voices, occasionally his parents but mostly my co-workers, attempting to reason with him, but he wasn't having any of it. He only continued to tell them off.

It was then that it happened, the thing that really mattered to me and my future, the proverbial lights came on.  The words came out of me like an involuntary sneeze, “you tell them”. I caught them enough that I couldn't be heard through the walls. It scared me for a split second, but then I felt something quite different than fear. I felt free and enlightened.

This young man had spent the last several years of his life under constant attack for in essence just being an individual. Sure, organization is important, but not enough to justify years and years of nit-picking and threats.  And sure, it's wise to worry a little when a child is left out of social circles, but not when it's his choice and when he has no ill will or feelings toward anyone. His stand in that meeting, taken out of context is just a student being extremely disrespectful and insubordinate, but in context it was the Boston Tea Party, Lexington-Concord, Rosa Parks in the front of the bus, and Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. He was expelled that day, and I called the parents shortly after to offer any and all help I could give them. My help was minor, but I was there to see him go on with his life, free of those who had sought to take away his individuality. To the best of my knowledge he's been very successful at being himself, and more than that.

One of the most significant measures of success in a person's life is who they've effected in positive ways, and just how positive. In this young man's case, he effected me. His moment of taking that stand that day showed me just how important the individual is. Without his stand, I probably wouldn't be writing right now. As a matter of fact I hate to think of what I might be doing, something meaningless, something depressing, something wrong.

I'd be so bold as to thank him by name, but I don't want to draw in the people I worked for and with at that time. That moment was also the moment I realized I was working with the wrong people, at least for someone like myself who cherishes the individual. So I'll leave it at this until I manage to contact him again more directly and less publicly, thank you, and sorry I was unable to see things before that day, but that wasn't going to happen without you doing it. The individual is bigger than all of us.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Naked Thoughts Revisited

What's it like to be indebted to someone who is set against you fulfilling your responsibilities and duties: the divine calling we all receive to be ourselves and whatever that may entail?

Is that what it's like to be almost a person without a country: the nation state you live in is bound and determined to undermine you being you?

Is that what it's like?

What do you do?

What can you do?

You do your duty and live on as God intends.

If the nation state you live in seems to be at odds with itself: providing you a safe place to live full of opportunities on the one hand while on the other working to try and corral your individual initiative, restrain your liberty, make decisions for you; then you take the good with the bad, but don't give the bad any unearned respect.

And what do you say to someone who suggests you're a hypocrite because of this: suggesting that you should forgo all benefits of the state you disagree with?

Tell them that by benefiting you through such policies, the state is clearly at odds with itself.  It is not you who are the hypocrite, but the state in its policies.

The state is only legitimate when it helps the individual or does nothing, and is illegitimate when it hinders the individual.

There is no true law that works against the individual.

There are a lot of laws that are in reality, not.

The test of this is not if the law serves you, but if it serves any individual who is true to their divine calling.

***

I'm sure there will be those who misunderstand what's being said here.  Context is the key.  I am saying nothing new for me here, just putting it in different words.  The individual is not some selfish sociopath or even necessarily you or me.  The individual here is that eternal occupant of the space we reserve for the third person.  Thus I said, "The test of this is not if the law serves you, but if it serves any individual who is true their divine calling."

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Regarding Liberty



By  

There are probably no two words which stir the emotions of Americans more than the words FREEDOM and LIBERTY. We cherish our freedom and the prosperity that it has allowed us to enjoy. Yet we have lost much of our freedom and liberty suffers.

I suggest that there are two primary reasons for the loss of so much of our liberty. First, is a failure of the people to fully understand the issues underlying freedom itself or the requirements and responsibilities of the individual if we are to remain a free society.

The second reason has been the willingness to give up a degree of freedom for safety, security, or some form of safety net against failure. In some cases this was done consciously but in the case of many Americans it was, perhaps, done without the realization of the price, in liberty, to be paid.

There are many enemies to liberty and we the people must be conscious of them and remain vigilant if we are to succeed as the stewards of freedom. America has been the lone lighthouse of freedom to the world for centuries and I fear that if we let this beacon be destroyed that the hope of mankind to be free is dead throughout the world. I do not propose that we force our ideas upon the world, but that we must live as an example to all; that we may show them the joys and rewards of being free and keep alive in their hearts the dream that some day all men may be free.

If we are to lead by example we must now show the world how a free people can restore freedom that begins to slip away.

Human nature is such that we often feel a need which is perceived to be urgent in the heat of the moment and it blurs our perspective as to our proper priorities. In the heat of the moment we forget that which is most important to us. Freedom and liberty are at the heart of all successful endeavors of man and without it there is no safety, no security, nor any safety net. The opportunity to succeed must always be accompanied by the equal right to fail.

Our actions and our decisions have consequences. Things we desire in life have a price. Only when man is willing to accept the consequences of his actions; only when man is willing to pay the price, only then... can man be free.

All peoples must realize that there is no compromise between liberty and tyranny. It is not possible to allow a single encroachment upon freedom and still preserve liberty. For once the door of the vault is but cracked open, the flood of force and tyranny floods in. We allowed the door to be cracked and it is now being thrown open wide to tyranny.

Our founding fathers had a strong distrust of central government and consequently they were ever mindful of protecting both the constitution and the liberty of man. One of the biggest underlying reasons we find our current loss of freedoms, and the mess of government, is that we completely reversed their view and began to look to the government as the cure all, the healer of all, and the source of all answers. We stopped looking at the government with an eye of suspicion and accepted their "know it all" attitude as truth.

There is danger in lying to another, but no danger as great as lying to yourself.

The government does not know what is best. The answers lay not in the halls of government. The government offers no protection. The government is not and never has been the answer to the problems of man. Those who seek the answer in a central government end up with the worst of both worlds....no protection and no freedom. It is time for Americans to realize the truth. Answers ultimately rest with the individual. Responsibility rests not on the government, but on the self.

No thinking American could study the thinking of our founders, or the documents they created to protect us from intrusive government, and question the wisdom of their thinking, yet we do so by our actions. To consider government the answer to our problems is to deny the thinking of our founders and to ignore the documents they created to preserve our freedom. Our actions claim they knew nothing about which they so eloquently spoke.

At the time our constitution was being considered many thousands of Americans believed that the question of independence hung precariously on the single thread of whether or not the people were sufficiently virtuous and moral to govern themselves. It was generally acknowledged that a corrupt and selfish people could never make the principles of republicanism work successfully.

Benjamin Franklin said, " Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

If one looks upon our current government we see massive corruption, self serving politicians, greedy special interests and failure of government on all levels. I propose to you that the public has demanded more regulation and more protection from the government for many years...to the demise of our liberty.

There have been demands to protect from all sorts of harm. The government created all sorts of bureaucracies in response. We have the FDA, the SEC, OSHA, EPA, Social Security, Medicare, the list goes on.

I submit to you that we have enormous government and no more protection than we ever had. Arguably less. We have indeed ended up with the worst of both worlds as we have less freedom and no protection either. Did the SEC stop Madoff? Has the FDA stopped dangerous drugs from getting on the market? I could go one, but the answer is absolutely not. Rather we allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security. We are shocked to find that in the end there really was never any way around the need for accepting responsibility for our own well being.

We are disappointed because we had unrealistic expectations. The truth is that we cannot expect the government to provide for us, protect us, nor care for us. It was, after all, never the intent of the founders that it should do so. Indeed, I would suggest to you that such a concept has always, in the history of the world, proven to be a false hope and a failed concept.

Perhaps one of the best examples in recent history is the Patriot Act under which we gave away untold numbers of rights as American citizens in the name of protection from terrorists. I submit that we are no more protected now than we were prior to the Patriot Act, but we certainly gave up our freedoms. Again the worst of both worlds. I submit to you that the terrorists won. The freedoms lost have done more to destroy our freedoms, and hence our country, than anything else the terrorists have done. As George Bush might have said, we must destroy liberty to protect liberty. (reference to his remark that to protect the free market we must destroy the free market.)

Yet, the terrorists didn't really do it. Our government passed the Patriot Act, and we let them.

Now, let us consider the idea of Liberty.

"Under English common law a unique significance was attached to the unalienable right of possessing, developing, and disposing of property. Land and the products of the earth were considered a gift of God which were to be cultivated, beautified, and brought under dominion."

John Locke was widely read by our founders. He stated that the human family received the planet earth as a common gift and that mankind was given the capacity and responsibility to improve it. He wrote that "God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience."

Locke pointed out that all property is an extension of a person's life, energy, and ingenuity. Therefore to destroy or confiscate such property is, in reality, an attack upon the essence of life itself.

Locke outlined the principle of "property" as follows; " every man has a "property" in his own "person". This, nobody has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.

It is perhaps worth considering the words of Justice George Sutherland of the U.S. Supreme Court who once told the New York State Bar:

"It is not the right OF property which is protected, but the right TO property. Property, per se, has no rights; but the individual....the man.... has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his LIFE, the right to his LIBERTY, the right to his PROPERTY.....The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes life worth living. To give him his liberty but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to leave him a slave."

Abraham Lincoln once said that: "Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is homeless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence...I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.

I hold THIS truth to be self evident; that whatever property a person has acquired through the fruits of labor, whether land, patent, copyright, money, or other worldly good acquired through legal honest effort and labor is the sole property of that individual. There is no natural law that permits another to rob one of property so obtained.

It is the sole purpose of government to protect property. If property rights are not protected then we are slaves and there is neither liberty nor life worth living; they are so entwined.

Our founders recognized that we could not delegate any power to the government that we, the people, did not have the legal right to do.

Now. Think about that. We cannot take property from our neighbor at gunpoint nor by force. (IRS) We cannot counterfeit money. (Federal Reserve) We cannot play Robin Hood and steal from our neighbor on the left to give it to our neighbor on the right.
(income re-distribution)

To understand liberty, one must understand property. Consider the above paragraph. If there is no protection of property, where is the liberty? Where then is the life? Wherein would you find happiness? So without property rights we find we can have no life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

Our founders realized that the proper role for the government was to provide equal rights of opportunity and not to provide equal "things". Samuel Adams said the idea of a welfare state was unconstitutional. Obviously, you cannot protect property rights by theft of property.

I have said for many years that we have a great fallacy of government. It is no great secret that an entity may be controlled through the control of the money. It is through the control of federal dollars to the states that they have circumvented the rights of the states. The ability to tax removes the idea of a government responsive to the people. It is a theft of property and not a protection of it.

I submit to you that the money you work for is your property. That it has always been your property, and that no man has a right to take your property by force or at the point of a gun. The purpose of government was to have been to protect our rights. But when government is in fact the criminal who confiscates our property then I suggest to you that something is very wrong. They take the fruits of labor at the point of a gun and, if you do not believe that, try refusing to give it to them.

If it is taken by force it is theft; whether it is done by an individual or a government makes no difference. We were to be a nation of laws. If it is theft for you to steal the earnings of another by force, it is unlawful. If it is unlawful for you to forcefully take the earnings of another it is unlawful for government to take the earnings of anyone by force.

When you work and they take the fruits of your labor you are nothing more than a slave. The government was supposed to be working for the people. They were supposed to answer to the people. But when they take your property and fail to listen, then I ask you who is WORKING for whom. We have taxation but we have no representation.

They no longer appreciate your tax money as a contribution to the state, rather they consider what they allow you to keep as their benevolence. They are no longer representatives but rather the ruling elite.

A couple of years ago I decided we needed to eliminate the income tax. If we control the money then they have to respond to our wishes. If they control they money then we are forced to comply with theirs....and obviously they are not motivated to listen to us.

I finally realized that was not sufficient. We are now being taxed in so many ways that they would merely increase other taxes to offset the loss of the income tax. Nothing would change. No, the time has come to stop all their ability to tax. It is a theft of private property. It was a power granted which never should have been granted; for to take the property of another is not a right we have and therefore could never have granted to another. We had no right to do so to begin with.

Not until the people control their own purse strings and those of the government will we have a government which is responsive to the will of the people.

I realize that there are people who will consider such a suggestion radical, but I assure you that it is not unrealistic or unworkable. In Ron Paul's book Revolution, he has stated that the elimination of the income tax would take the federal government all the way back to the level it was at in....1997. Wow.

I am not going to get into the intricacies of how this can be achieved at this point. I save that for another day. For the moment I prefer my reader focus on the rightness and wrongness of the concept of the government taking your property and observe the results it has achieved.

As long as they control your money you work for them. As long as you work for them they control your life. We have been forced into slavery whether we care to acknowledge it or not. But I believe the truth sets you free and it is time for a healthy dose of truth in this country.

Remember, when the people fear the government you have tyranny. When the government fears the people you have democracy. (though we technically we have a republic..not a democracy...they are a little different.)

Now, it is perhaps time to explain another great lie and great theft. There have been entire books written on the subject and I wish to merely summarize the subject of the Federal Reserve and the effects upon both government and the people.

The Federal Reserve was sold to the people with a lie which was basically that it gave the banks a back up to prevent a run on a bank and prevent the collapse of the banking system. It was explained as a protection of the people and insurance for your money on deposit.

As with many things, our government deceived the public into accepting the idea while their real reasons for their wanting to create a central bank were far more sinister. The idea was conceived by the big bankers, the government, and the special interests.

It allowed the bankers to lend far more money and hence increase their profits. It allowed the government to increase the money supply at will and thereby finance projects they could not immediately pass on to the people in the form of taxes. It gave them the ability to print money as needed and to inflate and thereby devalue the currency.

The use of a central bank and the power to create money out of thin air goes a long way to funding the expansion of government and is at odds with the concept of liberty and property rights. The printing of money and the subsequent inflation and devaluation of the currency has the effect of lowering wages and transferring wealth from the poor and middle classes to the bureaucrats and special interests.

This has been going on for decades and the wealth of Americans has been steadily and quietly stolen. In the meantime the federal government has manipulated the money, the world markets, the economy, and expanded government with their counterfeiting of the money.

As I stated in the article entitled "State of the Union"; Lenin is said to have declared that: " the best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."

Marx's Fifth Plank of the Communist Manifesto mandates a strong central bank monopoly. This was seen as necessary to maintain power over the entire economy and to protect against the encroachment of capitalism.

For the government it is cheaper in the short run to inflate than to borrow and much more palatable than immediate taxation to bay the bills. If a government cannot borrow or inflate the currency it would be much smaller and the country much more prosperous and safer.

This corrupt method of paying bills and avoiding direct taxation only serves to institutionalize a system that breeds contempt for liberty and self-reliance while feeding the growth of big government. Any institution that can do this is by nature tyrannical and is specifically what the constitution was trying to prevent. Authority to create money gives credibility to legalized counterfeiting.

The principle here is that we are expected to accept without question that we should welcome government action that destroys liberty in order to save it. It is precisely this idea that suggests we destroy the dollar in order to save it.

When a society such as ours is relatively free it is through the use of deficits, taxes, fear, and fiat money that power is solidified. The authoritarians need the central bank for this takeover.

In every government subsidized program including banking, medicine, education, agriculture fiat money looks like a panacea. The results however are always tragic. Poverty and chaos ultimately ensue and powerful special interests demand a bailout from the very victims of the fraud.

Witness the bailouts and the taxpayers who are on the hook to pay the expense of bailing out the special interests and all the while it has been the working man who has been robbed at every step of the process, the working family who has little left, must bail out the ones who were the beneficiaries all along.

We were sold the idea that this central bank was to protect us. HOW HAS THAT WORKED OUT FOR US? We sought protection and in return our wealth has been stolen, our freedoms sacrificed, and instead of protection we get debt.

We have gained the worst of both worlds. No safety and lost liberty; though in this case we were robbed all along the way as well.

The crash was caused by several factors but almost all of which were a result of the Federal Reserve and government meddling. None of this collapse was due to functions of a free market nor the fact there were not enough "regulations" in place. The crisis will, however, be used as an excuse to further curtail liberty, the functioning of the free market, and the passing of more regulations.

If we are to ever be truly free again, it must begin with the recognition by each individual that we were not born merely with God given rights, but God given reason and intelligence. These were gifts to provide us with the ability to think for ourselves rather than expect others to do our thinking for us, and the good sense to realize that no one is capable of looking out for us as well as we can do it for ourselves.

Americans used to take responsibility for themselves, their families, and their actions. They willingly paid the price for freedom. They accepted the consequences of their decisions and their actions. They asked nothing of their fellow man beyond being left free to pursue their dreams and their own idea of happiness.

Life is not a free ride. Government cannot provide for the individual. In the end, after you have given of all your property, and all your freedom, perhaps even your life, government will fail to provide...... as history has so frequently shown.

If we are to have Liberty, we must assume the responsibilities of the rule of self. In the end, the price of freedom is cheap by any measure and is the ONLY hope of prosperity for anyone.

At the time the Constitution was being submitted to the states for ratification Thomas Jefferson said; "May you and your contemporaries preserve inviolate the Constitution, which, cherished in all its chastity and purity, will prove in the end a blessing to all the nations of the earth."

Madison said " The happy union of these states is a wonder; their Constitution is a miracle; their example the hope of liberty throughout the world. Woe to the ambition that would meditate the destruction of either."

In conclusion I suggest to you that there will be no freedom, no restoration of liberty, no form of responsive government, until we restore the protection of our property.

There will be no protection of our property until the right to tax by the federal government is brought squarely under the control of the people, the Federal Reserve is abolished, and the currency restored to a commodity based system. Perhaps the return of the gold standard, but regardless, the central bank must go.

There are other changes which need to be achieved, but none so fundamental as restoration of property rights. For in our property rights we realize the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

for my readers who would like to understand more completely the operations of the Federal Reserve, may I recommend the book by Congressman Ron Paul, MD. entitled "End the Fed." It is a good explanation of the workings of the fed and it provides a view as seen from inside our congress as well.

Portions of the above are from the upcoming book entitled "Cold Hard Truth" soon to be released.

Copyright 2009. Jean Lewis. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday, November 4, 2014

What Do The Lost See In Us?

[This is a re-editing of a previous post.  I can only hope that like the sermon "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God", this message becomes more powerful and relevant in its second run.] 

There's a popular story about some folks who took a copy of the Bible and cut out every part that spoke of social justice.  The claim is that there wasn't much after that.

I have a hard time believing the story though.  You see, they actually sell Bible's like that, ones where everything that supports social justice has been removed.  You can go to almost any bookstore in the western world and find one for sale.  In fact I own not only one but several.  One's even a parallel version with four different translations side by side.  I actually like all of these versions of the Bible a lot.

Is it because I like editing out the stuff I don't like in the Bible?  No, it's because every translation of the Bible I know of is like that.  There is no support for social justice in the Bible.  I can say all of the support for social justice has been removed because that support is nothing, and nothing has been removed.

As those who read me find out pretty quickly I'm an individualist and so it should come as no surprise that I might direct you to the story of Zacchaeus.  This is one of the clearest individualist moments in the Gospels.

Luke 19:1-10
New International Version (NIV)

"Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.  A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus;" . 

Note that "he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy" i.e. Zacchaeus was the worst sort of rich man who made his money by cheating and through the abuse of government.  Does this sound like a familiar story to what happens far too often today?

"He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.  So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way."

This is a big moment within the moment.  "He wanted to see who Jesus was".  In spite of all that the local people could justly see as bad about Zacchaeus he wanted to know "who Jesus was".  That's the beginning of wisdom cubed.  Not only did he admit there was something he didn't know worth knowing, but that something that he didn't know was Jesus Christ.

"When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.'  So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly."

Jesus addresses Zacchaeus individually and demands something of him, a place to stay the day.  It's interesting that it was a demand and not a request.  Jesus clearly knew something about this situation the rest didn't or still to this day don't.  But the huge thing from Zacchaeus's point of view is that he welcomed Jesus gladly.  I suspect at this point he was saved, though of course this could just be Zacchaeus being hospitable to a guest and not the more momentous acceptance of Jesus Christ as his lord and savior.  So let's read on. 

"All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.'"

The people are of course shocked at what they just saw happen between Jesus and this man.  Not only has Jesus "gone to be the guest of a sinner" but one of the very worst in their eyes.  I would add, in my eyes as well.  He abused government power to enrich himself and the oppression of government is bad enough without people exploiting it.  So unfortunately I could easily see myself in this crowd.

"But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.'"

Here Zacchaeus seems to be painfully aware of what the crowd is thinking and doesn't want them to think his bad past has somehow been justified, so he offers a penance.

"Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.'"

Jesus's words here are where a huge lesson manages to hide from many of us.

"Today salvation has come to this house".  Why?  Because of Zacchaeus's offer to do penance?  No of course not, not if we truly understand how Christ's gift of salvation works. 

Jesus goes onto say, "because this man, too, is a son of Abraham."  So is Jesus saying Zacchaeus is saved because he's a Jew?  Is he saying he stopped being a Jew but became one again due to his penance?  Once again not according to the nature of Christ's gift of salvation or what the Bible says about being a Jew for that matter. 

Especially considering Jesus then follows the sentence with, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."  And who are the lost?  Jesus told a few parables about "lost" things, sheep, coins, and each of them had two important things in common.  One was that having the nine out of ten whatever they were was never good enough reason not to make finding the one that was missing a priority.  And the second key thing was that whatever was lost, there was just one of them.  It was never the lost group but always the lost one.  So when Jesus said, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost", I'm pretty sure He meant the individual.  That is the lost message for many of us in the story of Zacchaeus.

What Jesus said about him being a son of Abraham was contextual, though not without great meaning itself.  He was saying Zacchaeus was just as important to Him as any of them.  But what the story of Zacchaeus should tell us is that Jesus came to save the individual and so much so that He risked the ire of groups of people in order to do it.

Jesus didn't die for your group.  He died for you.  His ministry, His mercy, His loving compassion is for individuals.  Anyone who attempts to help groups at the expense of individuals is clearly not being as they may claim, "Jesus in the world".

Christ's love is not compatible with social justice.  He calls me, He calls you, He calls individuals to reach out to individuals in need.  And it should go without saying but it doesn't, if we attempt to reach out as a collective to groups we do something wrong.  And what that wrong thing is, separating ourselves from His ministry.  For His ministry is Him reaching individuals.  The greatest individual of all reaching out to save the individual.

Each of us must try to see the individuals like Zacchaeus as He does.  Not in terms of socio-econonics like wealth distribution or in terms of one group of people being more or less worthy than others.  No group is getting saved.  If that was His goal He would only have come once and we'd all live in the Kingdom of Israel.  Individuals are who the son of man came for.  He came to save the lost, the ones.

If you're not certain I know what I'm talking about, read those parables, read the prophets for that matter.  Even in the prophets where Israel was being condemned God had a message to the individual that was faithful. He was going to save them.  Read about the times when God would warn someone of imminent destruction for some nation or city and that person would attempt to negotiate with God.  Always it would come down to saving the one, sparing the one.

Jesus Christ came to save Zacchaeus and He did.  The city of Jericho where Zacchaeus lived on the other hand, we don't know how many were saved that day, just that one individual was.

As long as the perversion of the gospel that is social justice continues to infect Christianity I cannot seem to say this enough.  Social justice must go.  The individual today climbs a tree to see who Jesus is and instead of seeing Jesus in us, the individual gets knocked to the ground and condemned for his greed.

On judgement day will some of us need to answer why we failed to help "the least of these" and then say that we "thought some were getting what they deserved, that it was social justice."?  I speak so that they can repent before it comes to that.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

My Acquaintance With Charlie Crist

It was 1998, back when I was still active in politics, a neo-con having worked on the campaigns of a generally libertarian city mayor.  I would eventually repent of my neo-con ways but that was still a few years off.  But it was then that I had the chance to shake hands with and speak with Charlie Crist, this year's Democratic party nominee for Florida Governor.

He was running for Senate against Bob Graham, another Democrat.  Crist was a Republican back then, and seemed an attractive candidate from a certain neo-con's point of view.  That was because like most neo-cons, he didn't shy away from a little "the ends justifies the means".  He was known as "chain-gang" Charlie back then because he didn't mind the ethical questions surrounding using convicted criminals for cheap forced labor, even it did cost some law abiding citizens job opportunities.  After all it struck a popular chord with voters at a time when Republicans needed as many conservative Democrats to come their way as possible in a Southern state like Florida.

I had reason to hope he'd be one of our champions, so when he attended a Republican County Executive Committee meeting, I was eager to talk to him.

As the meeting ended he stood almost alone in the back, and so my eagerness was mixed with considerable disappointment in my fellow Republicans.  They had given up on beating Graham and didn't want to waste any money or effort trying to help Crist.  I on the other hand had a bit of a grudge against Graham ever since he refused to condemn the Nicaraguan Sandinistas for their massacre of the Mosquito Indians (It was an issue I later regretted not suggesting Crist run with).  So I wanted anybody to beat Graham, and Crist seemed a pretty good anybody at the time.

 I shook his hand and introduced myself.  He seemed generally likable but there was something I couldn't exactly place that was odd.  His hand-shake was neither firm nor soft, though perhaps a little soft, but I wanted it so much to be firm.  I wanted him to be the man who could beat Bob Graham, and I did what I could to help his campaign, but unlike the Forbes, Dole, and various mayoral campaigns I had worked on before, there wasn't much for me to do other than stick a bumper-sticker on my bumper and watch him lose.

I supported him for Governor the time he won, and excused his pie in the sky proposals such as paying all teachers six figure salaries, and keeping homeowner's insurance affordable even in major flood zones.  I was still a neo-con, and I thought he was just setting goals so lofty as to be impossible so he could say they were his, and thus disarm liberals.  It was a classic neo-con tactic on steroids.  Where as Bush would actually attempt to take over traditionally perceived as liberal issues and actually try to solve them, Crist would simply make a promise in the same area that no one would fault him for not keeping because of its amazing scale.  Crist's tactic seemed to have the beauty of being able to disarm the left without actually doing anything.

But as his time as governor approached its close, a reality began to settle in with me.  Crist didn't realize what he was doing.  He actually thought his goals were achievable and set out in earnest to do just that.  The six figure salary for every teacher had nowhere to go in reality so no harm there, but his insistence on keeping homeowner's insurance rates down in major risk areas chased away private insurers and put the Florida sponsored substitute in financial jeopardy.  Florida was and may still be just two major hurricanes away from the state government becoming insolvent.  The clever neo-con take on Crist was no longer working for me and I had to start accepting that he was just incompetent at anything other than politics.

As time for him to run for re-election neared I was ready to hold my nose and pull the lever for him, but then came the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back  He essentially declared that more could be done for Florida in the US Senate than could be achieved by its own state Governor.  In other words he embraced one of the biggest things wrong in the country, the accumulation of power in Washington at the expense of local government.  And, knowing his general lack of thought on such matters, even if he just didn't realize what he was saying, the enormity of ignorance that must accompany anyone who could actually be a state governor and think he could achieve more as a US senator is tough to fathom.

Charlie Crist has no legitimate place anywhere near a governor's office, and heaven help us if he should ever manage to move beyond that.  I so dearly hope Floridians have the wisdom not to put this man back in the governor's office.  Not even my old neo-con self could support him over just about any other Democrat.  now that I have repented of my ways and become a libertarian I would encourage my fellow libertarians to not let this become a time to make a statement by being part of the 2% or so that vote for the libertarian.  Stopping this politically well packaged incompetent from advancing his career closer to national leadership where he could make Obama look immensely competent by comparison, it's just too important.

I know, you've grown tired of being told you should vote Republican because the Democrat is so much worse, but in this case, it may just be the only time it was true.  Check what I believe in.  Read my other blog posts.  I believe this is that one time if there ever was one.  Hold your nose or whatever you have to do and vote for Rick Scott.  It could be the most important vote you ever cast, for the entire country, yes even history.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

This Dyslexic's View Of Individual Liberty And Dignity

Dyslexia was my handicap in my youth but once I overcame it through sheer hard work, dyslexia has become a gift to me.  Because, unlike so many others, I never actually ridded myself of it, I constantly see the opposite sides of everything I think about, and seeing this I see connections that others miss.  You see that's what my form of dyslexia is, a mind that must see addition and subtraction at the same time, or any other set of opposites, and thus must answer two questions for every one that is posed, but more importantly must see the two answers as part of the same thing.

Now I'm familiar with the common conclusions people jump to when I describe this, and no, I'm not saying I merely see what opposite sides of a cause have in common.  One wouldn't need a different mental wiring to see that.  What I see is the actual toggle, so to speak, or I could say the hinge the sides turn on, and their connection to that hinge is frequently quite enlightening.

Some opposites, like many philosophers have claimed through the millenia, need each other, but that's not true of all of them.  The Jedeo-Christian God for example has absolutely no need of the devil.  In fact they simply aren't opposites at all.  Other apparent opposites on the other hand are inseparable.  We human's are apt to mix these things up, and to our determent.

Here are some proverbs, so to speak, that have grown out of my brain's unusual wiring.

1: A child can't really learn to share until they first know what it means to own something and not share it.
-- You can't share what isn't yours to share, and you also aren't really sharing something if you're being forced to.
-- The option not to share must be real, or their can never be a choice to share and thus can never be true sharing.
-- It's more important to teach a child ownership than sharing, if you must teach only one, since the latter is impossible without the former.

2: Show me a truly greedy man and I'll show you someone who doesn't understand ownership.
-- If you own something, you care about it and you want others to respect your property.  If you want others to respect your property you understand how others will want the same for their property.  While it's possible someone may be so self-centered that they don't see the relationship between respecting others' property and the respect they want for there own, this level of self-centeredness borders on being a sociopath.  Yes, it's that unlikely.  The more likely cause by far is they never came to see anything as actually being anyone's property, including their own.  They're greed is that of someone wanting to dominate a buffet.  They have an irrational insecurity, most likely the result of parenting that failed to teach them a sense of ownership, and so they strive irrationally to get things before others do.
-- The absolute best government policies for countering greed is to protect and respect property rights, nothing less.

3: You can't have non-violence or even life without violence.
-- Violence is an inescapable part of life.  It's how organisms sustain themselves.  Even photosynthesis involves a violent bombardment by the Sun of the Earth.  Instead of teaching a child non-violence only we should teach them the difference between appropriate and inappropriate uses of violence.  The anti-spanking movement is raising generations of people who simply can't cope with reality.  It's only through a massive co-enabling that these unfortunate victims of warped child-raising are able to avoid becoming quivering balls of disturbed confusion the first time they're confronted with a situation requiring violence.  And as for those who still become violent in sheer nature, they lack any guidance that might tend to limit the degree of of their sociopathic behavior.
-- Show a child that tends towards violence what appropriate violence is and you show them a path to being a functional part of society.  Show a child that doesn't tend towards violence the same thing and you prepare them for those inevitable moments in life that might otherwise destroy them.
-- There is nothing nurturing about teaching zero tolerance of violence.

4: The individualist will usually be less selfish than the collectivist.
-- If you don't fully appreciate the value of your own individual dignity, liberty, or aspirations then you'll ignore those things in the lives of others as well.  It is easy to convince yourself that the greater good just so happens to work in your favor as you proceed to be very selfish.  On the other hand,  if you first appreciate and value your own liberty and dignity, it is relatively difficult to convince yourself that you are being less than selfish when the pursuit of your benefit runs over someone else's individual liberty or dignity.
-- I think this is one of the most difficult of the proverbs to grasp.  It's just seems to make so much sense that if we emphasize groups over individuals, we are being unselfish.  We miss the logical subtlety that groups verses individuals is not the same as others verses self.  We miss that others are individuals just as we ourselves are, and thus there is no equivalent relationship to groups and individuals.  We only understand others by understanding ourselves.
-- Once one grasps this important distinction between groups and others one will also begin to see why social justice is such a wrong concept, and how much harm it does.

5: Humility leads to greater command of one's talents as well as command of one's immediate environment.
-- A humble person sees both what things can be done and which of those things will be most advantageous to do.  Over time humble people will be more effective in their endeavors than those who are not humble.

6: Humility can maximize confidence.
-- Knowing one's limits teaches the full extent of one's capabilities, and knowing that makes one confident in what they do.  To know if someone is humble, you need to get to know them. A humble person could come off as cocky because they will tend to be confident.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

No Thanks To Them Abideth

Government is a limited tool.  I could almost stop with just those five words and have said as much as any writer would normally with pages of words.  But I need to at least explain some to be clear.

I'm an individualist which makes me largely a libertarian but at the same time requires me to appreciate a legitimate role for government in civilization.  Without enough government oppressive thugs and inconsiderate fools come to dominate everyone's lives.  And a world dominated by oppressors and/or full of hazards created by fools is definitely not a world that most individuals are likely to thrive in.  I think this is pretty much self-evident reasoning.

Where things become less clear is the point at which there is too much government.  In other words, at what point does government become the oppressive thugs and inconsiderate fools?  Here lies the debate of our age.  There is a growing trend for more and more people around the world to conclude their government has moved beyond the point of keeping the thugs at bay and the fools under control, and has actually become the thugs and the fools that need stopped.  At this point anarchy almost seems preferable since at least in anarchy there are no laws prohibiting resistance.

The problem for the individualist is that there is no right choice between an oppressive/foolish government and anarchy.  Both severely limit and otherwise attack the dignity of the individual.

The only right choice is less government but not the end of government.  Government must be used for what it is for and nothing else, and that means that not only must government's physical size be limited but its very definition must be minimized.  

And there should be no fretting about this.  Humankind have long recognized that government always inevitably disappoints us whenever we have expected more of it than just the bare minimal task of keeping a bare semblance of order and safety.  Martin Luther wrote in his time about this disappointment with the following lines in a hymn,

"The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;"


Most big things, even those smaller than vanquishing evil in the world should never be trusted into the hands of government.  Keeping criminals and inconsiderate fools from ruining life for the rest of us is the only big thing government is meant for.  And for that task it is the right tool for the right job, but no other.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Three States Of Deity

I've grown bored with debates between atheists and theists.  More and more they seem like watching cats play with balls on a billiard table.  They have no idea what the table is for but the balls are fun to knock around.  And if one of the balls actually gets knocked into a hole, like it should be, from the cat's point of view the fun is diminished.

That's my way of saying the debates miss the point and those participating in them seem to actually be determined to keep missing.  The point you see is one where a decision must be made at the core of our being.  It's a place where both reason and emotions must merely stand at the door.  Only the heart can go in.

The debaters also talk past each other.  That is they operate with incompatible definitions.  But considering the point they seem determined to miss, this makes sense.  If they found definitions of key terms like "god" that they both agreed on the debate would be over, rendered moot.  At least if they found definitions I could agree on.

You see once one starts to debate the existence of something that is bigger than the universe, transcends the universe, and is at the same time omnipresent in the universe, certain standard logical relationships turn inside out and outside in at the same time, that is as they relate any postulated existence of such a god.

"Can God make a rock so big he cannot move it?" is a question intended to point out a logical flaw in the idea of omnipotence, but instead illustrates how the positing of an omnipotent god requires a special logic in order for logic to be relevant to the subject.  And I for one believe logic must be relevant, so thus it needs special rules that account for the posited god.  God isn't the question but the given, for if the god were the question the answer would be impossible to reach either in the positive or negative.  For if the posited god exists the rules of logic must be modified to account for that god, and if the posited god does not exist, the logical quandary proves nothing other than maybe that someone's god is the current rules of logic without any modification.  And there lies the rub as they say.

I would suggest that there are three states of deity, or I could say three ways that a god exists, all of which are pretty much beyond rational debate.  They're beyond debate because they are definitions of godhood, and any debate over definitions is outside empiricism, generally though practical perhaps, they are still subjective.

One of the key points about these states is that each one by itself makes something or someone a god.

The Three States Of Deity
(1) Perceptual
(2) Practical
(3) Independent

Perceptual State
If someone sees something as a god then whatever that is, it is a god.  Even if everyone else in the world insists whatever it is isn't a god it is still a god to the person who perceives it as such, and the relationship to the individual is all that matters for godhood.  Unless or until their perception changes, that god exists.

Practical State
Many people defer to and/or revere someone or something almost completely without question.  This makes whoever or whatever that is a god.  Even if one is an atheists and insists there are no gods, if their deference to something goes almost completely without question, they have a god on their hands.  This god is one by practice or i.e in the practical state of deity.

Independent State
Now if someone actually is a god then they are such whether anyone perceives them as such or if anyone treats them as such.  Thus all three of these states of deity can constitute a deity independently.

And so what's the point of these states?  It is that whether we care to admit it or not, gods exist.  The only question left for us to debate is do some of them or at least does one of them matter.  Or perhaps more to the point is why has it always mattered to human beings?  Is the god question just a chemical fluke of genetic origins that wastes our time?  Is it an early state of an advanced trait we have yet to fully evolve?  Is it a residue of a more oppressively collective past, or as I have come to believe, a universal awareness of the ultimate champion of us as individuals?  That would be the God of the universe who created us.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Of Science And Mythology

Scientists could learn a lot by looking at myths.  It is my experience as a student of science, an appreciator of the classics, and something of an expert in the ancient end of history as it relates to how people think and once thought that scientists tend to see mythology as anathema.  For many of them it is like a monstrous creature of subjectivity that corrupts and destroys all efforts to be objective and advance modern enlightenment.  It is their arch nemesis in their quest to free our minds from superstitions that hold back progress and make us do terrible things.  But I think their near repulsion at mythology is just another form of superstition.  They have allowed their fears and bad memories to make irrational impressions on their worldviews.

Science and mythology have a great deal in common.  I actually suspect, and no doubt many historians would say my suspicion is well founded, that science has grown out of mythology.  And like a child would have a lot in common with her parent so science has a great deal in common with mythology.  

They both use agreed upon and strictly adhered to methodologies.  A priest/storyteller can't just start to make things up any more than a scientist can just declare his new theory to be of merit.  Both mythology and science use peer review and communities defined by credentials.

In fact myths and scientific models are extremely similar.  They both attempt to explain natural phenomenon.  And both are developed as a result of long periods of observation.  Sure the methodologies may be radically different in ways but the over-all thought architecture is virtually the same.  From observations models are devised and then over time with further observation the models are tested.

Now what happens when believed in myths and scientific models fail to predict contemporary events is also quite similar.  Similar enough that scientists who experience such a situation might just gain useful perspective by considering the larger picture that contains both their models and mythology.

In both cases people are extremely hesitant to question the myth or model.  They start looking for ways in which they may have some how influenced the "gods" in order to bring about the unexpected result.  Whether they suspect sins, poor adherence to scientific methodology, or yet unsolved mysteries that will leave their precious model intact once revealed, it's essentially the same path of reasoning for the ancient priest or modern scientist.  Subjective and objective thinking becomes hard to distinguish.  It is almost as if square pegs need to be pounded into round holes and the pressure to do so is more than sufficient to achieve the task.

Now anyone who dares to use the occasion to question the myth or model tends to be perceived as motivated by either unbridled ambitions or a lack of respect for the religion or science.  Simply allowing the few who dare to question to do so without significant threat could destroy the structure of credentialed peer review that lends credibility to the community.  If a few can question the very myth or model without the support of peer review and be right then the very merit of peer review could come into question.

So those who question have their credibility attacked while their actual ideas are either not addressed or misrepresented using the straw-man argument or otherwise set aside using any other logical fallacy that can be slipped by the unsuspecting.  They can't give fair consideration to the actual ideas presented in the challenge since to do so would be to give credibility to the challenges that arrived outside the blessings of peer review.

Now with that said allow me to present to you some documented excerpts from authoritative sources on an issue in science that is influencing public policy, global climate change.  Go find your best big-word decoder ring and let's go.

"The last million years on Earth have been one long ice age, interrupted regularly by interglacials, or brief periods of warmth. The warm spells have usually lasted between 10,000 and 20,000 years. We're in one now that began about 12,000 years ago.  So any millennium now the temperature will drop, glaciers will grow, and ice sheets thousands of kilometers thick will advance on the continents, devouring a largefraction of the land on the planet."


~ Houghton Mifflin Science

"As a reviewer admitted, "failures to support the Milankovitch theory may only reflect the inadequacies of the models.""

"By the start of the 21st century, it was clear that the connection between global temperature and greenhouse gas levels was a major geological force. All through the Pleistocene, the greenhouse gas feedback had turned the planet's orbital cycles from minor climate variations to grand transformations that affected all life on the planet. The geological record gave a striking verification, with wholly independent methods and data, of the processes that computer models were predicting would bring a rapid and severe global warming — a disruption of climate exceeding anything seen since the emergence of the human species."

~ Past Climate Cycles
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm

The discrepancy between the predicted “signature” of anthropogenic greenhouse
warming and its absence in half a century of observed temperature records is
currently under active discussion among climatologists. A report by the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP, 2006), says –

“For longer-timescale temperature changes over 1979 to 1999, only one of four observed upper-air data sets has larger tropical warming aloft than in the surface records.” [Even this single dataset does not show enough troposphere warming to match the models’ predictions that justify the UN’s high central estimate of climate sensitivity to anthropogenic greenhouse warming]. 

“All model runs with surface warming over this period show amplified warming aloft. These results could arise due to errors common to all models; to significant non-climatic influences remaining within some or all of the observational data sets, leading to biased long-term trend estimates; or a combination of these factors. The new evidence in this Report (model-to-model consistency of amplification results, the large uncertainties in observed tropospheric temperature trends, and independent physical evidence supporting substantial tropospheric warming) favors the second explanation. A full resolution of this issue will require reducing the large observational uncertainties that currently exist. These uncertainties make it difficult to determine whether models still have common, fundamental errors in their representation of the vertical structure of atmospheric temperature change.”

Applying Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation for the discrepancy between theoretical modeling and real-world observation is that the models on which the case for alarm about climate change are based have very substantially overestimating the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse warming on global temperatures. The Climate Change Science Program, however, prefers to assume that it is observation, rather than theory, that is deficient."

 ~ Science & Public Policy Institute
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/greenhouse_warming_what_greenhouse_warming_.html

Now to attempt to make sense of all of this in light of myths and scientific models.  While, as the Science & Public Policy Institute says there are a lot of climatologists questioning the current models that suggest human activity is a significant factor in global climate change, and even the most fundamental science supports cooling and not warming as dominant on the larger scale of time, that is not what most are hearing from those in positions of power.  I hope I may have given you a plausible reason why that is.  Just like challenging myths, challenging scientific models challenges the importance of peer review and the credibility of the scientific and political communities that invest in these models.  They are ruled by their idols created through the inevitably imperfect craftsmanship of human efforts and are unwilling to brave the humble ground of admitting they are in fact just as human as the rest of us.