The Spiral of Amnesia

Today in the news:

• Netflix  creates super-PAC to support SOPA laws
• The Internet Association just formed by Google, Amazon, and Facebook to lobby Congress for a free Internet
• President Obama threatens the Senate with a Cybersecurity executive order
• Predator drones start overflight in North Dakota
• Janet Napolitano claims drones will improve public safety
• Drones being sought by DHS, police, and television stations for public observation
• TrapWire secret affiliations revealed
• Minnesota about to become 30th state to pass Constitutional marriage amendment

And so forth. Doesn't anyone see a trend here? A trend that has escalated like the dollar devaluation against gold in the last half century? One group of people after another are attempting to impose control over another. The divisiveness taking hold of this country threatens to rip the foundation of liberty in our society to shreds.

 Take the issue of marriage. Pastors are on opposing sides of this issue. Archbishop Nienstedt asserts no harm is intended by passage of the amendment defining marriage. Apparently the archbishop did not learn anything in his Catholic education. Something about the road to hell...?

This last month I have been reading in the three volume set, A History of Matrimonial Institutions by Dr George Elliot Howard, published in 1904. Dr. Howard recounts in volume one the history of various marital arrangements around the world as reported by several researchers of varying credibility back to pre-Roman Empire times. Volume two covers the changes that took place in England and America beginning just prior to the Colonial era. Volume three completes a detailed account of marriage and divorce proceedings in the United States up to the date of publication. I started reading this set because I wanted to understand what truly is "traditional marriage" that the religious force in our nation has based their crusade against homosexuals upon.

So far what I discovered is, there isn't one. There are hundreds, if not thousands. Virtually every kind of marital arrangement conceivable to man has been practiced on this planet. And this includes divorce. Before I finished volume one the message came on very strong and clear: the Catholic Church in its attempt to regulate and "sanctify" marriage created a terrible morass of religious and civil legislation that follows us today. Where once marriage was a private contract between husband and wife, and consummated by the family of the bride (usually her father), it is now completely out of private hands and dominated by the State at every level. And what is pushing this domination? Religion. Never mind the morass of problems created by St. Augustine, or Luther, or King James, or the Stuarts of England as they produced by their meddling some of the worst abuses of marriage and divorce the world has ever seen. Religious piety is still in there slugging away in the Congress and the Courts, striving to impose moral rectitude in the name of God.

Before the Roman Empire, marriage had nothing to do with religion or God, or morality. It was a bond between two people, merging their resources and talents in creating another family, which had always been the basis upon which governmental power was derived. Marriage was largely considered a private act, sanctioned by the community not legally, but festively. In some instances there were some moral taboos or tribal edicts with regard to the separation of a married couple. But these almost always were centered around the disposition of property, the disposition of underage children, and debasing of the marriage relation where more than one spouse or infidelity was concerned. Marriage and divorce was largely a voluntary contract made and broken by those who entered into it, and no one had much control of it.

Since the Catholic Church invaded the Teutonic Empire problems with marriage and divorce have escalated to the unmanageable levels we have today. One does not need to investigate Christian history very far to discover it is composed of some of the worst hypocrites the world has produced. If one considers Jesus' words concerning marriage it is clear it belongs to this world alone. (Mark 12) It is well known among scholars of ancient religious texts that Paul was considered an heretic by the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem. This is why he was sent away from Jerusalem. He attempted to teach a different code of conduct than what had been given to Peter and James. The Christianity we have today is a derivative of the self-persecuting Saul of Tarsus, who continued going about dictating to all who would give ear, what was moral, and what was the mind of Jesus, even though he never sought tutelage at Jesus' feet as did His fervent disciples. It is in Paul's disquisitions we see the departure from the teachings of Jesus on the matter of marriage. And it is aberrations of the Church at the peak of the Roman Empire we see building upon the doctrines of Paul, the ex-persecutor. But Christians today do not perceive any hypocrisy in what they are attempting to impose on their fellow Americans against the backdrop of an ancient Hebrew custom. They insist the entire world must conform to their modern interpretation of this ancient and little nation's marriage customs!

It is little consolation to be reminded Thomas Jefferson foresaw this trend. Few people today know anything about what Jefferson wrote or his concerns for the survival of what they so laboriously sought to create. Listen to America's real "prophet":

 "It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself ....  The way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws. It is true, we are yet secured against them by the spirit of the times. I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer an execution of heresy, or three years' imprisonment for not comprehending the mysteries of the Trinity. But is that spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless ....  From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights."
 Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1781)
 
The danger in this constitutional amendment is not so much the damage done to marriage traditions. It is the further widening of the door of State intervention. Intervention that will ultimately and inevitably backfire upon the religious institutions of this country, just as it did upon our ancestors of Western Europe over 400 hundred years ago. Friends and countrymen, you haven't seen anything yet with regard to the demise of the family and the solidarity of children with parents. The State already has total and unequivocal control over our children (or haven't you been in juvenile court lately?), and they will soon with this foolish legislation fueled by well-meaning but spiritually impotent priests find the State dictating who may marry whom, when, the duration, and the obligations. Or did you not pay attention to Michael Straczynski's portrayal of the Telepath Corps in Babylon 5: They are mother. They are father.

This is where we are headed. We are the ones who have created Orwell's 1984 society. The Fahrenheit 451 government. The tyranny of a One World Order. It's what you want, because you haven't learned the first lesson of a patriot of Jeffersonian government:

Mind Your Own Business and leave your neighbor's practices and beliefs alone.

SethSmee

Indulging Stupidity

There is considerable lament in the apocalyptic arena of American society concerning the dumbing down of our citizens in the public schools. Indeed, I have my own despair when I repeatedly see writing composed of improper words, words that could be considered homophones through sloppy speech.

Your/You’re
Seen/Scene
Affect/Effect
Weather/Whether

Ad nauseum. Sorry kids if you weren’t introduced to Latin. Actually I wasn’t formally, but not only did I read a lot and make frequent reference to the most ancient of dictionaries available, I endeavored to learn three foreign languages in my youth, and again, referred to the dictionary a lot. To do such a thing by the time of public school graduation was quite rare in those days. But I shortly found out three languages were required throughout Europe, in addition to their native tongue. I started with Russian for nearly three years, moved into Spanish for four, and then Norwegian for a couple of years, living within the culture of my ancestors. Since then I have explored German and French to a small degree since they are connected to Spanish and Norwegian. Learning another language not only improves one’s native language skill, but broadens the perspective. Thinking in a foreign language immerses one in the culture that spawned it, presenting a view of the world’s customs unobtainable in any other way.

I lament the formal education I received. For one, there was no emphasis on public speaking. That was an elective removed from high school curriculum by the time I attended. Public speaking skill is the kind exhibited by such people as Christopher Monckton, who can eloquently and quickly articulate his ideas as well as debate an issue with agility. Such a skill was once valued around the world as an expression of a civilized person. Today we are burdened with celebrities who cannot express a simple idea without lacing their sentences with “you know” and “like” until one is tempted to scream at them: Just say it!!! They speak as though they are choking on an egg. Writing skill goes hand-in-hand with speaking. Today there are far too many kids writing the way they speak. Because they are not taught to speak well, they cannot write well either. Too many are of the notion that writing is the same process as speaking. But it is not. If you write the same as you speak, then you are communicating far less than when speaking. And of course, it follows as night to day, anyone who cannot write well cannot read well either.

I was impressed in the fourth grade by my no-nonsense teacher that an education was not what was dispensed at school, but what the student obtained on their own initiative. She said teachers in public education only presented the basics. It was up to each student to be exactly that—a student. She quite eloquently pointed out that the law requiring children to attend school did not make them students, nor did it deliver to them an education. School was the resource provided by their parents’ taxation, and becoming a student was up to each of us. If we did not take advantage of that opportunity, we were robbing our parents of their labor on our behalf. When was the last time anyone heard such admonishment in public schools?

The heart of the problem of education lies in the conflict of inquisitiveness as opposed to indulgence. Public school in America is an environment of indulgence, and that is by design. Those industrialists who built up the backbone of our economy, making America the most productive nation on earth during the last two centuries, imposed their desires upon the education system. What they wanted was a populace who served in a production environment and performed their duties without objection or invention. Those who showed extraordinary capability among the elite families were sent to academies and ivy-league schools to cultivate leadership skills and scientific capacity. Those who wanted to be indulged tended to wash out, while those who were invested with the thirst for learning and excellence obtained higher learning.

However, even though public schooling does not accommodate well those of inquisitive mind and striving for excellence, they are not consigned to ignorance nor ineptitude. Numerous people have made themselves a success in this world without the benefit of a formal education. But they taught themselves a great many things concerning business, finance, marketing, and technology. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are obvious examples. Not so obvious is Jesse Ventura, Jim Williams (applications engineer at National and Linear Technology), or Eric Hoffer.

Eric was an itinerant laborer until he moved into longshoring. Eric had the most rudimentary formal education (blind during most of his youth), but spent all his free time as an adult between jobs in the local library. If he was in a location long enough he would check books out to read during his leisure at the end of a back-breaking day in the field. Eric became America’s foremost philosopher in modern times, wrote several books, and taught courses at the university level. Of all his books, The True Believer and The Ordeal of Change are the most noted. Within them in concise, clear detail he lays out the human condition, and the characteristics of human behavior in mass associations. Eric was not interested in wealth with its attendant vain leisure. Leisure he had all he could desire. Eric thirsted for understanding the human condition. If you want to know what makes people tick, especially within a mass setting, Eric Hoffer is the man to read. Then look into the works that he studied to enlarge his world view.

What bothers me today is not the state or agenda of public education. Actually, the term is a misnomer, for it should be called State indoctrination. Never before in the history of man has so much knowledge been made available to those who desire it. Never before has there existed such a plethora of assistance programs to help those who struggle with their public indoctrination. Never before has there existed so many private foundations dedicated to learning. In the last decade the technology to provide information beyond one’s wildest dreams has been thrust upon the world. A medium so astounding in its revolutionizing life as man has known it for millennia sometimes leaves me speechless. In the midst of this cornucopia of available information we are beset with a level of ignorance and communicative skill found in the backwoods of America’s frontier three hundred years ago.

The problems we see manifesting in society, politics, religion, and the economy are all tied to indulgence. We have seen exceptional performance in the Olympics this year, but hardly anywhere one travels in this country  is a person found of exceptional communication skill and intelligence. The value of education more than anything else is knowing when and how one is being manipulated and taken advantage of. The best slave is the person who does not realize he is. The task master’s greatest fear lies in the person who awakens to their slavery—when they realize that it is all being carried out with his consent.

To stop the corruption of Wall Street, the warring in Washington foreign policy, the Federal oversight into every detail of American life, all that needs be done is to cease the sale of indulgence, to cease consent in being told what to do. Tyrants are always appointed by the people who sell indulgences. When the people cease giving their consent to tyranny, the entire structure collapses and peace, prosperity, and true happiness take root. Eric wrote about it. So did a lot of other students of the human condition.

But first, one must be able to read, to write, to communicate effectively. Only then will there exist enough intelligence to recognize when and how the megalomaniacs have taken over the destiny of Man to turn him back into the brute of ages past.

SethSmee

References
"People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend on them. Since they cannot do that, people choose to make the powerful virtuous, glorying in being victimized by them. After their secular savior-their Robespierre or Stalin-is safely in his grave, then the people glory once more in denouncing him as a betrayer of their trust. Then they repeat the cycle." Dr. Thomas Szasz Untamed Tongue p155
 

Blood Must Flow

Recently my son wrote to me, more than just a bit befuddled, about a discussion with some of his co-workers. They claimed that a third party candidate, a libertarian no less, would become a dictator. Said they, power must be dictated from the bottom up, not the top down. A libertarian would want to turn the entire world of government upside down. So ergo, a libertarian would become a dictator.

Speaking of third party electoral candidates he asked, “Is it the offshoot that becomes the dictator? Could a third party in the US political system really be the devil in savior clothing?” I am confident he knew the answer to that, but wanted the benefit of my having read a little more into American and ancient history than he has.

I’m caught between crying and packing my bags. Nicaragua isn’t sounding so bad at the moment.

These are precisely the people who, when they finally obtain the tyrant they so desperately seek, will turn upon him and blame for all the evils they endured under his reign. Perhaps my response led him astray somewhat, for there are numerous examples of tyrants having been installed by action of our CIA. Many of the modern-day dictators that come to mind have their roots in CIA sponsored overthrows. Nevertheless, monopolies are sustained by those who favor the monopoly, whether of foreign or domestic influence, not by those who run them.

My exposition to my son on the case of tyrants began with a simple summation: A real libertarian as President is likely to be a) assassinated, b) neutralized by Congress, c) resign. Tyrants are given power, usually by the representatives of the people. It isn’t until this power is delegated that they begin their reign of terror and depredation upon minorities. Those overlords who are installed by the rulers of an Empire are not usually called dictators, simply because they are appointed lackeys in the regime. I presented my case that we already have a dictator in the White House, long before Bush Baby. We know his “secret” works as Emperor, although we nostalgically continue to use the term Mr. President.

Like some barnyard animals, some people need a solid thwack between the horns to get them to wake up to what they are thinking. Libertarianism is not a political party. Libertarianism is an ideology. Libertarians who are compelled by the present system to combine into a party, like Republicans or Democrats, are interested in minimizing the intervention and influence of government. A libertarian, true to his ideology, by definition cannot be a tyrant. The conflict of partisanship is irrelevant and counterproductive to their objective. When President Washington chided Congress about party spirit in his Farewell Address, he was reminding them that our experiment in government wasn’t promoted by partisanship, but by following their own rules laid down in the Constitution.

Alas, not even Washington followed them, and installed as Secretary of the Treasury a man who did more damage to the Constitution than all the bickering during the Convention. By this decision, Washington opened the door to the devolution of the newly created Republic into a Democracy. Franklin should have marched right back into the Convention and charged the delegates with preserving the Republic. Why? Because they are the first line of defense against all enemies of the Constitution, foreign or domestic. If they don’t, it is tantamount to the horse getting out of the barn. A great deal of effort by the people is required to put everything back in order as intended.

Mark Kelly in his book Gabby laments the spirit of violence infesting our Democracy, and perverting our political process. One would think that such a highly educated and experienced astronaut would understand what a gaffe his lament was. Contrary to what some Internet swamis assert, we do not have, and have not had for over two hundred years, a Republic, although the present form somewhat carries the label. We have a Democracy (manipulated by an oligarchy), and those who proposed the Republican form knew that democracies are always turbulent. Violent. Taiwan’s political representatives pugilating their differences in chambers is not the first example. We have our own exhibits of violence in Congress. Violence in fact, as Jefferson stated, is the last resort of the people when re-establishing their will over that of their appointed representatives, even to demolishing the structure and starting over. In the story of Dune all one needs do is substitute blood for spice wherever it is asserted the spice must flow, and that is the sum and essence of what we have in government around the world.

My son’s co-workers, and indeed even astronaut Kelly just don’t get it: The intent of the oligarchy running the world is for the blood to flow. A world population of a half billion will not change that policy. It is how they operate, and have always operated, and will continue to operate until the people wake up to their manipulation, choosing the peace of self-government and abandoning government sanctioned Entitlement.

SethSmee

Born on the Wrong Planet

Americans for the most part (and this goes for the world at large), are insane.  No question about it.  In forty five years I have not seen any regression from the entitlement attitude that permeates our society.

If the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing in the hope of realizing different results, then there is no question about my declaration.  America is filled with a lot of insane people.

My neighbor declares that mankind does not care enough about each other to see to it that healthcare is extended to every person.  He is convinced it ought to be FREE.  He of all people, who is older than I and just as well educated should know better.  How can a person get healthcare free?  For thousands of years man's societies have been based on private enterprise. (Oh Please! Feudalism and every other -ism is merely the plundering, legal or not, of the basic element of private enterprise--the person works to survive.)  This is the basis of capitalism--what seems to be considered the dirtiest of words these days.  The only place I know of where a person can be freely treated for illness is in the aboriginal tribes of backwater third-world nations.  Let's go back to that shall we?

Since our Western civilization is based on private enterprise, and a system of money for exchange of service rendered, there are only two ways that healthcare can be obtained "free"--charity, or contract.  I don't know of any doctors who last long as charity providers, simply because they must compensate those who provide them with the necessities of life, and their medical materials.  A communal society such as the aborigines operates on a principle different than profit.  What my neighbor believes is free, is not free at all.  When the government taxes the people in order to give to one, it isn't free, it is plunder.  Plunder of not only the taxed person's property, but plunder and corruption of their moral values.  This is not contract, it is fraud.  If one of us were caught taking from our neighbor without their express permission it is a commission of theft.  But if several of us get together and vote in favor of taking from our neighbor in spite of their objection, it is termed a "benefit" to which any of the group's voters have now entitled themselves.  If the plundered neighbor objects, they are penalized, ultimately with imprisonment. Great system of charity, that.  Falls right in line with the kind of theft Wall Street Bankers do each and every day.

You can try to explain this form of legalized plunder to fellows like my neighbor next door and their brain shorts out.  They insist this is freedom.  But it is only the kind of freedom that exists in an aboriginal society which is not based on property, and therefore profit.  Is my neighbor being compassionate and charitable in supporting such a scheme for funding healthcare for all?  In my book he is a thief.  This isn't charity or compassion for his fellow citizens at all.  His entitlement ethic has blinded him to the destruction he is causing to his friend's and neighbor's wealth, and ultimately his own.

"Think positive, things will get better as the system is fine tuned," he says.  What a G.D. short memory he has!  This kind of government meddling in the citizen's life has been the source of the devaluation of our hard-earned labor for over 200 years in America.  Whenever government regulates or makes an edict, the result is the loss of more wealth than if the individual had managed things himself.  Government has no incentive to be frugal, and further, in order to supply the cost of its multiple departments to provide the "service", MUST take more in legalized plunder than the actual cost of the "benefit", to cover it's own costs.  Government does NOT produce wealth.  It only consumes and redistributes it.

Get this through your heads, you insane Americans:  Government does NOT produce wealth.  It only consumes and redistributes it.

Anthony de Jasay wrote that "non-unanimous politics is redistributive (unanimous politics being an oxymoron and redundant), not just by taxes (wealth), but burdens and obligations imposed by collective choice (majority rule) do also, which necessarily atrophy conventions of civility, mutual support, respect for promises, contracts and property, self-maintenance of order, and the sanctioning of violations."  Once these are shifted to the domain of government, Entitlement fills the vacuum, spurring ever wider redistribution of property and diminution of personal accountability. The result is a reduction in morals to its lowest operation, and a near communitarian state.  This being the case, religion in its effort to reinvigorate moral behavior by legal edict administers the coup de grace of morality.  But let us not here bequeath conventional religion with the entire disgrace.  At its fundamental root lies the principle of the Mote and the Beam no matter what dogma you adhere to.

Alas, but this is futile.  For there is no hope for a nation of insane citizens who are duped into thinking anything one gets from the Government is free, and everyone is entitled to every comfort of life.

Indeed, if there ARE any aliens on this planet, it is people like me who were wrongfully born here to live among such nutcases.

SethSmee

References
Anthony de Jasay Against Politics
Frederic Bastiat The Law  

The Cataclysm of 2012

Reading the political news about the New Hampshire polls this morning is a turn of the stomach.  Not one well-reasoned consideration for a Republican presidential candidate was reported.  That more intelligent reasons were not published is the fault of crass journalism.  It is a worthy, enlightening exercise to juxtapose today's political views in New Hampshire with those of the 1780's when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were being debated for ratification.  The nature of all living systems is entropy, and this encompasses political thought.  How far we have descended!

Ron Paul's Presidential campaign has gained momentum as his opposition has shown themselves to be the most inept, unreliable, ignorant choices for what once was considered a prestigious and influential position among nations.  Yet, the one thing that is lacking in Ron's constituency is the realization that a Constitutionalist in the White House is but one small piece of the solution.  Without a Congress of similarly persuaded representatives of the people, no President can hope to be effective in restoring the Bill of Rights, fiscal responsibility and frugality.  Without a Constitutionally driven Congress, the Patriot Act, and similar bills (like 1021 & 1022) will remain intact, and the office of President will become a scarecrow, to be replaced by a tyrant.

It is difficult not to observe similarities with the course of this nation in my lifetime with that of the Southern Jewish Kingdom 2000 years ago.  The northern tribes had been swept away, incorporated and dissolved into the populace of other nations.  The southern kingdom was hanging by a thread as it was repeatedly over-run by foreign invasion.  Their last desperate hope was the advent of a political Messiah.  What they got was a spiritual Messiah who they rejected as an insurrectionist, not against Rome, but against the Jewish Sanhedrin.  Had they been paying attention, they would have realized that the message of their spiritual Messiah was that freedom (and its attendant liberation) was a product of the soul, not the sword.  Had they hearkened to his counsel to Peter ("put up thy sword into its sheath..."), and his declaration to Pilate ("My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence."), they would not have been swept away within one generation and instead, outlived the tyranny of the Roman Empire with their culture intact.

Sixty years ago, a prescient journalist of political acumen, declared and elucidated the fall of liberty:

"I do not see how to escape the conclusion that, at any rate up to this point, military undertakings were once again being 'handled' to pursue the 'purposes' of groups which have become supremely powerful in America and England, and that these purposes were the opposite of any 'cause' publicly proclaimed. I think the aim is so to direct events that the last obstacles to the setting up of the despotic World State shall be broken down; and these are, the remaining rights of property and liberty in the American Republic and the British Island.
For the great secret which has been discovered in the Twentieth Century is this: that once you can get The Boys marching you can behind their backs destroy all these remaining obstacles. You can do anything at all! The solution to all problems lies in the magic words, Emergency Powers." (Douglas Reed, Far and Wide, p225)

The first experiment toward the enactment of "Emergency Powers" was the Twin Towers debacle, masterminded by the "Wizards Behind the Curtain" who have pulled the strings in major power centers of the world since before the time of Woodrow Wilson.  We can bet the next to be the detonation of nuclear weaponry within our borders as one of the next "emergency" acts, likely to precipitate out of the saber rattling against Iran.  What event actually produces a new "emergency" is irrelevant; several contingencies are in place, all of which lead to the suppression of the citizenry (far worse than what President John Adams carried out), and the economic and political fall of the "United" States of America as the last hope for liberty in the world.

Like the VietNam era, soldiers returning from today's foreign wars are savvy to what is really taking place in these war zones, and many are seeking to put a stop to this insanity, just as their fathers tried forty years ago.  But the American public will have their tyranny, for their heritage has been lost through Entitlements.  Everywhere you look, the major objection to the Constitutionalist candidates is the loss of Entitlements instituted and expanded since the first stock market crash.  "We the People" have lost the meaning of "the experiment in self-government", believing it to be the act of democracy, rather than the pearl of the heart.  "We the People" have been duped into believing President Wilson's declaration that the world can be "made safe for democracy" at the point of a gun barrel. "We the People" have been duped into believing President Bush that democracy can be imposed on third world countries still operating upon tribal customs and laws, forgetting that our own Independence came not from external power, but through the internalized concept of "self-government."

Douglas Reed foresaw the culmination of the flatening of independent nations:

"The 'emergency' goes on and clearly will continue until the forces which now dominate national governments succeed in their aim of reducing the English-speaking world to slave status within their World State, or are exposed and defeated. In that grand design of the twentieth century Korea is but a stepping-stone towards the final stage of Armageddon." (Douglas Reed, Far and Wide, p235)

There are those religious forces in America who declare we are a Christian nation, all the while pressing for the return of their political Messiah through hastening Armageddon.  To these hypocrites I reiterate the words of their revered Master: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men's] bones, and of all uncleanness." "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not... in thy name done many wonderful works?"  "...then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

Oh there will be catastrophes around the planet this year, as the sun and the solar system pass through a different phase, for the Celestial clock ticks on.  The real cataclysm however, will be of man's own making.  The stage is set for The Day of the Tyrant.

SethSmee

DARK MATTER Located & Observed!!

The level of intelligence exhibited by many people, especially the young these days, as evidenced by the comments posted on scientific You Tube videos is ghastly.  It is worse than disgusting.  It is a sign of retrograde amnesia.

Take for example the simple concept of the scientific method.  I was introduced to the idea in grade school.  When I entered my major in college it was again presented, but in much better detail.  The purpose of the scientific method is to weed out opinion, conjecture, fraud, and provide a framework in which anyone, anywhere, can repeat a given test and verify the results.  If an hypothesis is falsifiable then it is a valid one.  That means any test performed MUST have the ability to demonstrate by its results whether or not the hypothesis can be proven false.

Tests are then conducted, data gathered, experiments performed, and the results directly or indirectly either refute or validate the hypothesis.  OPINION has nothing to do with the falsification process.  An hypothesis is not valid or accepted based on how many people believe or agree with the conclusion.  Validation is not a numbers game where the majority rules.

But here is John Q. Public insisting that CONSENSUS among scientists is what determines if an hypothesis is correct or not!  Consensus is group opinion.  It is not data.  It is not evidence.  It is politics.  And it originates in the ivory halls of universities which receive research funding from the government.  Simple concept.

But John Q. Public just cannot get these simple concepts into their brains.  There are thousands of people insisting that CONSENSUS among scientists is what makes Global Warming a FACT.  My Sage dictionary defines consensus: "Agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole."  For an hypothesis to be validated (really proven false), the addition of other testers performing the same experiment, deriving the same evidence or data, does not make the results any more correct, no matter how many people perform the test.  But if only one test is performed that yields evidence (data) contrary to previous testing or falsifies the hypothesis, the hypothesis fails and everyone starts over with a new one.  The size of the group has no bearing on the validity of the findings!

Consensus has to do with politics; that of management, or juries, or government bodies and commissions, and creation of religious dogma.  Policy, strategy, or dogma may be formulated based on the results of scientific tests, but that is not science.  It is not evidence.  A colossal problem develops when a group of scientists agree to a particular judgment or opinion on a given hypothesis, and use that as the basis for peer-review before publication.  Rather than examining the contrary hypothesis for sound data presentation, logical errors, procedural errors, or misapplication of mathematics, such a review system becomes a filter by which opposing research and proposals are screened out  of publication.  This is not the application of science de rigueur, this is politics.

We have re-entered the Dark Ages of religious bigotry in the form of politicized science at the highest institutional levels.  And it is sustained by the creeping, cancerous high density gray matter, excuse me, I mean dark matter--those singular black holes between the ears of publicly educated citizens.

John Q Public has a conceptual problem: 1) His vocabulary lacks sufficient breadth and depth because he doesn't fully understand the meaning and use of words he bandies about in his thinking. 2) The lack of self-confidence in his own (absent?) analytical thinking and fully functioning vocabulary (which produces muddled perception), induces him to substitute faith in the dogma of mass-movement authority.  He has become the quintessential True Believer defined and characterized by Eric Hoffer.  Two qualities of the True Believer is the vulnerability to adhere to cult movements, and engagement in cognitive dissonance as the means of reconciling reality from dogma.  It is no coincidence these same people use the label denier, as they cannot distinguish the difference between denial and refutation when they see it.


Here's my hypothesis: All physical Ice Ages are preceded by educative failure and the freezing of rational, critical thought in the human specie.  A bogus notion for sure, but it makes great fodder for the credulous who walk out of public education today with toilet paper diplomas.

SethSmee
Have a Merry Winter Solstice Holiday!

The Chains That Bind Them

In the news this morning it was announced that GM, Chrysler, and AIG had paid back $675B of the $700B they were loaned.  Do you remember the high anxiety over the situation a year ago?  Congress was told by the Fed and the President the nation’s economy was going to implode if they didn’t take immediate and drastic steps to shore up the bad loans of these corporations.  Do you smell a rat?

Imagine this: You and your spouse have been spending your way to prosperity (an oxymoron but indulge the metaphor a moment) with nothing down on a house worth >20 times your income, and piling up credit card debt like Inspector Drebben used them for ID. (RIP Leslie Nielsen.  I loved you.)  Suddenly you are asked to make good on all these loans, but you scream you can’t.  So the loan institutions for fear of caving in themselves figure out how to consolidate your loans, and lend you the money to pay them the interest.  Now here’s the coup de grace, in less than a year you are able to pay 96% of that consolidated loan back!  Not possible unless you were in sound financial straights and never needed it in the first place.  Now do you smell a rat?

Why would your lenders do such a thing?  It doesn’t make sense!  No it doesn’t, until you discover the way they produced that money to loan you was to devalue your income.  They went to your employers and arranged the books such that you got paid the same on paper, but your pay was worth much less than before.  When you and I do this it’s called fraud.  When the people who lend the money out do it, it’s called collectivism.  They are collecting not just your property, but your ability to amass wealth.  Soon everyone is equally poor, and the people who loan the money possess all the tangible property.  The result is, even though those giants loans have been paid back, you and I are stuck with a currency that is worth much less than it was a year ago.

If you haven’t read the fine print before now, every loan originated is set up to pay back the interest before the loan amount is paid.  You pay them for the “privilege” to use their money, and the payment of the original borrowed amount gets deferred until they get all their interest.  Although the two are paid off coincidentally, effectively if you let the loan run full term it’s as if you are consigned to paying off the borrowed amount last.  Loans are ALWAYS in the lender's favor.  You have to give them collateral—usually tangible property, you have to pay them first for the use of their money, and they can take it all away from you at any time.

In every debt instrument there is a clause: Payable in full upon demand.  The lender can demand all the money back they gave to you at any time.  If you can’t do that, they come and take your property away.  It doesn’t matter how much you have given them in interest.  A 10% interest loan over ten years means you pay them in addition to the amount you borrowed, 100% of that borrowed money for the privilege of using that money.  In a thirty year loan you have paid them three times the borrowed amount, plus the loan amount, meaning if you let the loan go full term you have paid four times the original value.  And at any time during that period if you fail to pay according to the plan they take it all back and you get nothing.

This is called a simple interest loan, and if you think this is robbery, when I was a youth banks were still making compounded interest loans—you paid interest on the unpaid interest!  This practice didn’t go away until the public finally wised up and refused to participate in the ripoff.  However, it still continues in a different form which loan sharks (payday and title loan businesses) use—the interest rate is usually around 25% and the interest period is in days instead of months.

If you haven’t figured this out yet, the practice of borrowing amounts to this: you get to use property today that would take longer to pay for in cash, BUT over the long term you get to have less property than you otherwise could have had.  You don’t get to travel as much as you would have, nor enjoy the comforts in tangible assets that you could have had at an age when it is most coveted.  If you engage in the practice of borrowing long enough, and without restraint, your children and even their children will be your slaves.  Perhaps for their entire lives.  At it’s root, this practice is called a Ponzi scheme.  You get away with the goods while the unsuspecting and innocent are compelled to pay for your extravagance.

Oh sure, Madoff went to jail for that.  But who really should be going to jail are all the members of the Federal Reserve for devaluing our money in order to cover bad loans (people who can’t manage a dollar in cash but borrow for everything) and thereby acquire the real wealth—your property.

This kind of fraud was in existence before Nixon took the country off the gold standard.  Now if YOU had made a fuss about it loud enough, Congress, who are the ones who spend your money, would not have gone along with Nixon.  And the consequence would be the value of your money would have remained relatively constant in spite of bad loans to this day.  What these money lenders used to do in ancient times to devalue the money supply was substitute bogus weights on the balance beam scales.  They often got away with it because communication was much slower, and the legal system under the existing ruler while much harsher than ours, was incapable of consistently enforcing punishment for the fraud.

When it comes to who is responsible for exploitation, is it the exploiter, or the exploitee?  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, thrice….

SethSmee