Wednesday, December 25, 2013

UN Declaration of Human Rights - The Preamble

Analysis.


I have decided to analyze the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I will indulge myself in no prefatory remarks, preferring to get right to the task.

"PREAMBLE
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,"
The opening sentence of the Preamble makes clear that all humanity possess equal and inalienable rights.  The specific nature of those right are not, as yet, specified.  Therefore, some assumptions will have to be made until such time as greater specificity may be encountered.  First, however, let us examine the definitions of "equal", "inalienable", "right", and a few other basic terms.

right
noun

18. a just claim or title, whether legal, prescriptive, or moral
19. sometimes, rights.  that which is due to anyone by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principles, etc.


in·al·ien·a·ble
adjective
 

1. not alienable; not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated: inalienable rights. 
Synonyms 
inviolable, absolute, unassailable, inherent.

e·qual
adjective 
1. as great as; the same as
2. like or alike in quantity, degree, value, etc.; of the same rank, ability, merit, etc.
3. evenly proportioned or balanced
4. uniform in operation or effect: equal laws.


claim
noun 
6. a demand for something as due; an assertion of a right

7. an assertion of something as a fact
8. a right to claim or demand; a just title to something


ti·tle
noun

9. property law

    a. the legal right to possession of property

    b. the basis of such right

    c. the documentary evidence of such right: title deeds

11. law
    a. any customary of established right

    b. a claim based on such a right

just
adjective

1.  guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness

2.  done or made according to principle; equitable; proper

3.  based on right; rightful; lawful: a just claim.

4.  in keeping with truth or fact; true; correct

Based on these definitions, we may conclude with certainty that the rights to which the sentence refers are just and absolute.  That is to say, they are made based upon correctly reasoned principle and may not be circumscribed, disparaged, violated, denied, repudiated, or infringed, save by one whose equal claims are being threatened in an immediate and unwarranted fashion.  

In practical terms it means that no man, group thereof, acting singly or severally, as such or under mask of label, may demean, disparage, or in any way trespass upon the equal just claims, which is to say the equal rights, of another individual or group thereof for any reason whatsoever save in defense of self and property from death, dismemberment, destruction, or other real harm.

This is the meaning of the opening sentence of the Declaration and we shall lean upon it as the standard by which the enumerated articles shall be assessed and judged.  

So far, the document is looking reasonably well constructed in terms of meaning.  However, there remains the question of what, exactly, are these rights to which the opening sentence refers?  They are not specified here.  We shall, therefore, have to assume they will be made explicit in the coming passages.

Moving on:

"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,"
Here we see the beginnings of reference to actual, enumerated rights.  There are, however, some problems.  To wit, thus far no irreducible basis is cited for the existence of these purported rights.  Therefore, the sentence constitutes an attempt at proof by assertion, which is invalid and therefore no proof at all.  This does not, however, imply that the assertions made therein are false, but neither do they establish their truth.  Nor do they define what constitutes "freedom of speech and belief", and while the truth of the assertion may be well clear to many of us, what of "freedom from fear and want"?  Let us forgo for now the fact that this stands as yet undefined.  We may, however, compare the semantic nature of this purported right with that of "free speech and belief".

The right of freedoms of speech and belief are positive rights.  That is, they assert the right to act positively.  You may speak and believe as you please, both of which are positive acts, whereas any right to be "free from" is negative in nature.  A negative right means is that one entitled to be free from unwanted outside interferences or influences.

For example, the right to privacy as guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States is a negative right that forbids anyone from intruding upon the private matters of another uninvited.  It is a proscription upon all against trespass and such is the fundamental nature of all negative rights.

Given the well established general validity of negative rights, we may now set our focus to the specific: "freedom from want and fear".  It should be no great stretch of credulity to agree that most people wish to be free from want and fear.  Therefore, the assertion of the right seems valid and agreeable, so far as it goes.  However, it can be seen readily that it does not go far enough.  What are the metes and bounds of "want" as employed here?  Does one hold the right to free from want for, say, a corporate jet?  A 300 foot motor yacht?  From which wants are we entitled to be free?  The sentence is opaque on this question, and is therefore severely and fundamentally problematic in its chosen construction.

As with "want", "fear" also encompasses a vast plurality of possibilities, not all of which are fundamental, nor are they universally shared by all people.  From which of the nearly endless litany of potential fears are men entitled to be free?  For example, is one entitled to be free from his fear of spiders?  If not, then clearly the use of "fear" in the sentence is overly broad.  If yes, the implications have endlessly radiating effects upon the entire human population, not to mention that of spiders.  

If we agree that even a single one of us holds the negative right to be free from his fear of spiders, let us call him Harry, he can be said to hold just claim not to be beset by that fear at any time or for any reason.  If we acknowledge this right as properly Harry's, it may be strongly argued that the rest of humankind is thereby obliged to preserve him from his fear through positive action.  The logically absurd, yet valid, conlusion is that the only way to possibly guarantee Harry may be free from his fear of spiders would be to eradicate all spiders from the planet.  Forgetting the impossibility of such a task and the endless cost to achieve the goal were it otherwise, not to mention that this is but a single item on the list of all possible fears, even its accomplishment cannot perforce guarantee that Harry will remain free of his apprehensions.  Perhaps he does not believe that all spiders have been wiped out and that one may jump out from behind the next lamp post and bite him. 

I trust you see the basic problem enshrined in the assertion of these two nebulously specified and vastly over-generalized negative rights?  Were we to accept the premise of them as stated, and took them seriously, we would be perforce obliged to attempt to make good on every want and fear imaginable because the negative rights of one man imply a positive duty by all humanity to respect and act such that the right is maintained intact.  If Harry is acknowledged as holding the negative right to be free of his fear of spiders, the implication is that the rest of humanity is obliged by that virtue to furnish him with a circumstance that guarantees an absence of fear.

One may argue that his entitlement to the state of freedom from fear does not imply a positive duty for his fellows to ensure his security.  This is, however, incorrect because if he has the right to be free of his fear of spiders, then he is entitled to that freedom, meaning he can demand it.  But to whom would Harry make such a demand, the spiders?  That avenue of redress is clearly moot and therefore invalid, prima facie.  Will petition to owls provide remedy?  Elephants?  No creature beside his fellow men could possible entertain such an endeavor, and therefore it would fall to his fellows at least to try.

Likewise, if Harry has the right to be free from want of a LearJet, someone, somewhere, is obliged to provide him with one.  This implication cannot be escaped once the premise is accepted as true.  This is why the expression of a right must be sufficiently explicit and narrow such that we do not end up accepting absurdity as truth.

Conceptually speaking, the differences between the brand of negative right as asserted in the Declaration and those in the US Constitution are fundamentally that the latter recognizes the positive duty of all men to abstain from acting in certain ways, whereas the former imposes a positive duty to act positively.  It is as simple as the difference between "thou shalt not" and "thou shalt".  While both are negative rights, one is satisfied through positive action while the other through negative.

Not to place too fine a point on this, but let us return to Harry briefly and his rights, real or imagined.  We entertain two negative rights: to be free from fear of spiders and that of his privacy.  In the former case, his negative right implies a positive duty of the world to act positively in pursuit of the goal of providing him with a fear-free environment.  In the latter case, the negative right to privacy implies a positive duty to refrain from acting in ways that would constitute violations of that right.  In the former case all are required to act and in the latter, to not act.  This is a fundamental difference and it is the factor that renders his right to be free from fear invalid and his right to privacy very much the opposite.

"Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,"
So far as this statement goes, it is good.  It could use some definitions, but if we assume a reasonably universal presumption of common understanding of the words therein, we may regard this as minimally sufficient for a preamble.  It says that because people may rebel against unjust treatment, a fact borne out by our long history of tyrannies, and that by implication rebellion is a bad thing, rights should be carefully protected.  The implication, however, is unclear as to whether it is rebellion that is undesirable because it is presumably directed against government "authority", the fact that it almost always results in death, mayhem, destruction, and misery, or both.  It may be fairly safe to assume the latter, but given the potential significance of such a document, such questions should not be left open to interpretive guesswork.  Once again, a greater specificity is in order even if here the foul is relatively small.

"Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,"
 Again, vagaries.  Who says this is essential?  By what standard do they judge it so?  What is their authority for pronouncing it to be so ostensibly for the entire world population?  What does it mean to "promote"?  The term as generally taken implies no employment of force, yet we have been treated to endless spectacles of political "promotion" at the ends of guns.  What defines "friendly relations"?  Just as so-called "free trade" has absolutely nothing to do with free markets, "friendly relations" as offered here may well in actuality have nothing to do with one's own conception of what that should mean.  Far too many times have we been treated to the semantic chicaneries of dishonest and dishonorable men who seek to gain at the expense of others as they redefine "up" as meaning "down", "left" as "right", "evil" as "good".

Beware of the concussion of language ineptly or malevolently used.

"Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,"
Who are "the peoples", exactly?  Does this refer to all the populations of all the member states?  Perhaps to their representatives?  Speaking only for myself, I can say without equivocation or other reserve that neither have I reaffirmed the stated faith, nor have I authorized any agent or other third party to do so on my behalf.  The use of "person" here is also vague.

"Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,"
Marginally acceptable, but the lack of specification of "rights" reduces this sentence to mostly gibberish.   Universal respect for and observance of human rights means nothing without sufficient understanding of what defines the claims in question.

"Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,"
Common understanding by whom?  All men or just the UN representatives?

At the very least, there should have been a statement qualifying the meaning of the body of this preamble as being contingent upon definitions to be included elsewhere in the document.  Thus far, the Declaration is constructed either carelessly, ineptly, or with purposeful vagueness.  In any case, the work speaks not well of its authors, for the most part.

"Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."

As with the rest, marginally acceptable as far as it goes, but failing to go sufficiently far to achieve minimal clarity, correctness, and perfection.  "Progressive measures" raises a very red flag.  Is this a general term or is it political jargon relating to "progressivism"?  A clear and unequivocal answer to this question is centrally important to assessing with precision the position expressed.

And what of non-member states?  Is it the UN position to leave them to their individual wills or will the UN "promote" its agendas there as well?

Conclusion

As we can well see, the construction of the preamble to the Declaration of Human Rights is fraught with imprecise language.  Because of this, it is almost impossible to discern meanings that can be pinned down firmly.  At the very least, this fact renders the document as fundamentally meaningless, largely due to the overly broad assertions and the complete absence of any definitions of terms.

Do the insufficiencies of the preamble spring from and unpublished agenda, or simple and innocent carelessness and/or linguistic ineptitude?  Neither is it possible to tell based on the reading alone, nor is it terribly relevant.  What we do know for certain is that the document, well intentioned as it may be, is thus far inadequate to the point of being grotesque.  I will add, however, that from my personal point of view I find my credulity stretched a bit too far to accept that an organization such as the UN, for which language competence is a centrally vital factor, could innocently publish a preamble so violently rife with flaw as is this one.  This fact should place one on high alert to the possibility that something foul is afoot here.

Having justly and competently raised a list of questions and exposed the profound structural weaknesses embodied in this preamle, I will take my leave.  In future installments I shall address the 30 articles of this Declaration in like manner as we search for the truth underlying its construction.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.



Sunday, December 22, 2013

DHS to populate its ranks with hardened criminals?


Consider the population of men who control the goings on in the world at its core.  I refer to them as "Themme", "Theye", "Theire" to distinguish them nominally from the dissatisfying vague pronouns of similar and non-capitalized spelling.

Theye have been wildly successful at corralling huge populations into thinking and behaving as they desire.  It seems, however, that of late Theye are running into some hard limits and that the populations for which this can be said are growing, the growth accelerating.

Consider the purported "election" of Barack Obama to the ostensibly highest office in the American system.  Back in 2007-2008 he was the darling of a press that portrayed him in ways just short of declaring his ability to tap-dance across the seven seas.  He could do no wrong.  This continued through his first term despite some of his policy decisions which the rational man could construe only as the product of some combination of wild ineptitude, ignorance, corruption, and bitter hatred for Americans.

This continued through the campaign cycle, but once his reelection was secured, cracks began to show.  One year into his final term now reveals a situation so bad that even those media outlets that were blindly dedicated to his service, rather than to honest and adept reportage, have softened the hard edges of their outward admiration of this president.  In some cases it appears they may be preparing to throw him under the bus as the threat of economic failure looms ever more menacingly to the degree that all but the most terminally devoted can no longer deny truths that were regarded as worse than treason just a few short months ago.

As Theye push the envelope of usurpation, more and more people are beginning to come out of the fog, asking "what is going on here?"  As this population grows, so grows the threat against Theire dominion and the agenda for expansion.  The question naturally arises as to whether Theye will otherwise sit idly back on the one hand as on the other they continue to push ever more deeply their trespasses against the individual.  At this point motives and intentions are rapidly becoming irrelevant.  It really no longer matters whether the intentions are good, if misguided, or openly malevolent.  All that counts are the results, and with each passing day they become more grim in terms of individual freedom and the prosperity that is directly dependent upon it.

If we accept the apparent circumstance as the true one, the question naturally arises as to whether there is a breaking point beyond which the population standing in increasingly open opposition to the trespass of the political elite into their private territory will precipitate material resistance of significance to Themme.  If we further assume the answer is "yes" and that the resultant reaction stands to pose real and perhaps mortal threats to members of Theire ranks, we must then ask ourselves whether Theye will sit passively awaiting their uncertain fates as an enraged population storms the Bastille with torches blazing and pitchforks at the ready.  While speculative, I feel fairly safe in assuming that Theye will not be found quietly waiting with their heads already positioned on the block to receive their richly earned rewards.  No.  Theye will fight.  But who will do the fighting?

The US military, it seems, is a bit of a wild card.  I have been treated to various reports and read articles expressing widely varying opinions that range from "nobody will fire upon US citizens" to "large proportions will follow orders no matter how blatantly and wildly criminal they may be".  I feel confident the truth lies somewhere between those extremes and I suspect Theye may not be so confident that the biggest and baddest junkyard dog on the planet will heed their command to protect Their cadre when the time comes.

What, then, are Theye to do?  Enter the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Forget about the ostensible mission of DHS - to protect the "homeland", a term with which I have never been comfortable as it reminds me too strongly of "fatherland" and "motherland", and we know what greatness spawned those fond monikers.  The question that everyone should be asking there is, who, exactly, comprises the "homeland" and from whom is it being protected?  At this point, given the waters having thus far passed under the bridges of recent history, I am inclined to assume that the "homeland" is not the people of the USA.  I am, however, very inclined to suspect that those very people are the ones from whom DHS seeks to defend their masters.

If we accept for argument's sake that "homeland" = Themme and "from whom" = the American people, a rather unpleasant new picture presents itself to plain view.

Many will immediately retreat into accusations of "conspiracy nut", "tin hat!" and so forth, but the evidence that is out there, that Theye have made no effort to deny, and in fact to which they admit openly via various government agencies and reports, suggests a very real possibility.  There are, of course, the bodies of legislation that have been enacted including PATRIOT, NDAA, and so forth.  Add to that the raft of executive orders that unilaterally grant the president powers tantamount to that of an emperor, and we already have enough evidence to suggest Theye are well into preparations for dealing with a nation that has decided enough is enough.

But the more immediately damning evidence blatantly rubbed in our noses relates to the materiel purchases by DHS  of recent years:



  • Ammunition to the tune of 1.6 to 1.8 billion rounds
  • Assault rifles numbering in the tens of thousands
  • Armored vehicles, last I checked, numbering 2717
  • 2500 GLS armored vehicles
  • Hundreds of thousands of polymer coffins (Actually FEMA/CDC)


There is much more to the list, but this should be certainly enough to prompt one to ask, "Why? - what is all of this for?"  After all, it is not the Department of Foreign Security.  We have our military for that.  What could they possibly want with so much military grade materiel when they are supposed to be concerned with domestic security?  What are Theye not telling us?  Is China and/or Russia planning an invasion?  If so, are our military forces not adequate to the purpose of defense?

It is pretty obvious that something is up, that is will not be pleasant, and that we the people are not likely to approve.  It is equally obvious that Theye have no intentions of going quietly into the night as we finally decide we have had enough and move to put Themme to ends.

Finally we arrive at a question central in all of this: who, exactly, are DHS?  Literally, who, which is to say how many, make up their ranks?  Five minutes ago I perused the "careers" section of their site and it shows a grand total of 104 open positions at DHS.  This is not suggestive of an organization preparing to go on a war footing as are their materiel purchases, which gives rise to some sense of confusion as to what is really going on.

If DHS is indeed preparing for either a major disaster or civil insurrection, they will need warm bodies and lots of them to man those vehicles, take up those rifles, and shoot all those rebels.  I may be wrong, but I see no evidence that their ranks are nearly sufficient to such a task.  I have made the observation in the past that Theye will derive their manpower from the very populations they seek to restrain, and I maintain that opinion, but not in the initial stages in the case of insurrection.  In that case, DHS will need a cadre of reliably loyal men strongly motivated to vicious repression of their fellows for the opening scenes of this play.  But where does one get such men? 

There have been all manner of rumors of Russian and other foreign soldiers training on American soil, apparently as part of covertly agreed mutual defense pacts wherein if Russia faces insurrection, American troops will be called upon to render aid and the same with Russian troops in the case of trouble in North America.  While plausible, I am not convinced this is going to happen for any of several reasons.  For example, how would Theye know whether Russia would pony up when things became real and immediate?  How would Theye know the troops sent here would obey orders to Theire satisfaction?  How do Theye know Russian troops would not turn on Themme, perhaps constituting an effective fifth column in the event Russia perceived a golden opportunity to advance their position on the world stage?

For me there appear to be too many loose ends with such arrangements, but of course this is based on my very imperfect knowledge of the truer nature of the relations between the various players.  But if my uneasiness about such arrangements is based in good reason, then perhaps other arrangements may be in the works, and that leads us finally to the bottom line, which is this:  In the case of civil insurrection, perhaps in the wake of an economic collapse, DHS will need a sizable force of bully boys upon whose willingness to fire on Americans can be solidly relied.  I submit that we have just such a population right here, several millions strong, and every so motivated to loyal service: those serving hard time in both federal and state prisons, especially the former.

Before dismissing this as some paranoid delusion, consider some of the realities.  At the time of this writing and to my admittedly incomplete knowledge, DHS employs not nearly enough people to do the "dirty work" of suppressing a revolt across the face of a nation as enormous and well armed as that of the United States.  Add to that the fact that perhaps not all current DHS agents are prepared to fire upon their fellow Americans, which will require a special brand of hardness, the sort that is well known to exist in the sociopath.  Our prisons are full of those.  Some may not be that way when they first arrive in prison, but the environment soon changes that.

Given the needs in order to suppress not just a revolt, but one that nearly everyone in the nation will know in his heart of hearts is righteous, and the prisoner becomes a very attractive choice for filling the ranks of repression. 

Consider the motivating factors from the prisoner's point of view:


  • You are living in a cage in hell
  • You eat lousy food
  • There are no women available, so you subsist on gay rape
  • You may be the victim of gay rape
  • Violence or its threat is everywhere and at all times
  • There is no happiness of which to speak
  • You face the prospect of decades of this "lifestyle"
  • You may even rather you were dead, but lack the nerve to end it


All of a sudden, you are offered a way out.  You will be released from the bondage of your cell if you agree to a different bond of service and if you discharge that service with absolute loyalty and obedience you will be granted a complete pardon.  Your fealty will require that you obey every order issued no matter what it might be or against whom you are called to act.  The least failure to absolute and complete obedience will place you back in your cell, only your circumstance will be at least ten times more savage and severe.  It is guaranteed that you will live to regret disobedience for a very long time.  Among the things required of you will be:

  • To be trained in the discipline and operations of a DHS agent
  • Conduct missions as given to completion
  • To fire upon American citizens in self defense or when otherwise so ordered
  • To execute American citizens as ordered without hesitation or reservation
  • To apprehend American citizens and convey or otherwise dispose of them as ordered
  • To defend your superiors up to and including the sacrifice of your own life to protect theirs
  • To defend your fellow agents, albeit secondarily to orders and defense of superiors
  • To refrain from all unacceptable behaviors of the prison and other environments
  • Starting from a clean slate


In exchange for your service, you will be rewarded with the following:


  • Immediate release from your current incarceration.
  • Training
  • A uniform
  • A purpose
  • A potential career
  • Good living accommodations, paid 
  • Good food, paid
  • Discretionary income
  • Personal security from other inmates
  • Authority to act in the service of your nation
  • Limited authority to claim booty acquired in the discharge of duties

In reward for your completed service you will receive:



  • A full pardon
  • Fully expunged record to the outside world
  • Possible career offer
  • Restoration of full contractual rights, such as they may be at the time of discharge


Given this scenario, which is by no means far-fetched, it becomes clear that the typical prisoner in for the long haul and probably violent to begin with, being likely an opportunistic creature, would jump at the opportunity to escape his past with all honors if he be ready and willing to assume the risks in exchange for the certainty of decades in a cage and man-on-man sex.

We have nearly two and a half million people in prisons in America.  The environments there strongly cultivate anger and pathological behavior and attitudes.  Living in such places is hellish for most and while some may be incapable of "making it" on the outside, the offer of freedom in an environment that provides strong support in the transition to the outside world might be just enough to make even those otherwise reticent souls jump at the opportunity to make a clean break from the past.

With such strong motivating factors at play, coupled with the right program of psychological conditioning, it appears to me that the US prison population stands as a premier source from which an organization such as DHS could pull resources with which to suppress rebellion with perfect cruelty and efficiency.

Until next time, please accept my best regards.


Saturday, May 11, 2013

A New Paradigm of Law


These days we find endless reference made to "rule of law", as well as an almost incomprehensibly manic devotion toward law in popular cultural outlets such as film and television.  This slavish idolatry of law is enough to leave the intelligent man brain-numb for its utter lack of sense, particularly given that the law has almost universally devolved into an institution of arbitrary and unjust prohibition and mandate, posing far and away greater dangers to the individual than it does protections.

Many nations presume themselves superior and more "civilized" than others because they operate under "rule of law".  Such nations often beat their chests as they boast of their augmented moral positions as places where rule of law reigns supreme.  What appears to escape anymeaningful examination is the fact that the vast and overwhelming majority of so-called "law" is immorally, ignorantly, and criminally conceived, drafted, enacted, and enforced.

Thomas Jefferson referred to the law as often being nothing more than the tyrant's whim.  A truer assessment has perhaps yet to be made, and yet, not all law is absent of proper moral substance.  Few people will argue that murder laws are morally unsupportable, yet laws prohibiting the possession and use of marijuana, the bearing of a firearm, or securing the services of a prostitute chafe against a great many people; a great majority, in fact.

Clearly, then, it may be said that there are two types of law: those that have the respect of the average man and those that earn his contempt.  But how can this be?  Is the law not the great and unassailable foundation of all properly civilized nations?  The answer to that would depend largely upon one's definitions and the presumptions under which he labors.

Suffice it to say that regardless of the commonly presumed normative values, the positive reality is that much of what is called "law" is despised, hated, often feared, and largely disregarded by enormous numbers of people.  Here we refer to ordinary and good people with no criminality about them whose innate senses of justice and propriety tell them that one law is acceptable whereas another is not.

Dictionaries, including Black's Law Dictionary (BLD) define "crime" in a most painfully absurd way, basically asserting that a crime is nothing more than a violation of written and enacted law.  This is yet another glaring example of just how ignorant, corrupt, or fundamentally stupid "legal thought" is.  What such a definition tells us is that a crime is whatever some arbitrarily constituted body of men say it is and therein after all are compelled to act in accord with the dictates, mandates, prohibitions, and other fiats as the so-called "law" may specify.  The utter absurdity of this would be difficult to overstate.

In the world of American jurisprudence, which derives strongly from English law, there are two basic categories of law.  The first is commonly referred to as crimes  mala in se.  Such are the true crimes that would include murder, rape, theft, robbery, assault, and destruction of property.  In other words, the acts are in themselves evil because they result in a harm being brought to another where there can be no justification for doing so.

The other category of crimes are those mala prohibita, meaning those acts or failures to act that are arbitrarily assessed as being criminal and become therefore punishable even though no actual crime has been committed.  Examples of crimes mala prohibita are almost without end, but a short sample list might include the following:


  • Speeding
  • Drug use/possession/distribution
  • Soliciting the services of a prostitute
  • Engaging in oral sex or other "deviant" sexual practice
  • Possession, distribution, or production of pornography
  • Flying an aircraft without a license
  • Operating an unregistered vehicle on public roads
  • Building a house without permits
  • Using dynamite to remove tree stumps
  • Making explosive materials
  • Burning your own house down
  • Walking nude on a public sidewalk
  • Failing to file an income tax statement
  • Bearing weapons for all morally justifiable purposes
  • Attempting to commit suicide

The list of crimes mala prohibita is enormous and, far more disturbing, utterly arbitrary.  The "logic" upon which such statutes are built and their enactment justified defies all rationality.  So wildly fallacious are the foundations upon which such laws are constructed and foisted upon the people of a nation as to do profound violence to one's sense of credulity.  That such huge populations of otherwise and presumably rational persons have allowed this brand of raving insanity to  arise, much less continue, destroying countless lives in the course of time is an aspect of human nature that must mystify God himself, leaving him scratching his own head in utterly failing comprehension of the behavior of his creation.

As we can see, a core issue here lies with the current, profoundly flawed definition of "crime".  Given that definition, crimes mala prohibita are secured their legal credibility for there is nothing in the definition of "crime" that places any requirements or other restrictions on the formulation of new and improved crimes.  The door is left widely open, and the bottom line is basically this: anything goes for which you can get away with life and limb.  That is the underlying principle upon which such law is built, which does not even qualify as the purely pragmatic, for pragmatism often has an understandable basis for its choices.  What we are examining here does not rise even to that meager standard, but rather nothing better than rank caprice and whim.

Given the definition of "crime", we find ourselves hip-deep in the nightmare of the purely arbitrary where any action may be redefined as a crime.  The implications of this are so profound and broad that "staggering" barely cuts the descriptive mustard.  In this world, it is a literal truth that virtually anything goes because there is nothing in terms of identified principle that delimits legislative action.  We can forget, for example, the dictates of the United States Constitution.  Why?  Because Congress forgets them routinely and any time that "old rag" becomes inconvenient to the goals and objectives of that hopeless body of dangerously foolish persons.

Because of the principles involved - or the lack of them, depending on how one chooses to view the situation - the only thing limiting what Congress may enact is the murderous ire of the people.  Thus far, the people have proven almost infinitely forbearing and therefore that little protection is essentially no protection at all.

Given this, there is absolutely nothing in principle to stop Congress from re-enacting Jim Crow laws.  But why stop at so timid a reach?  Why not just enact a law wherein one population is obliged to hunt another?  Perhaps they will instruct black people to hunt the whites, gather them together, and send them back to Africa.  It may sound crazy, but it is no more so than sending the black ones "back".  How can one be returned to a place they've yet to go initially?

How about a mandate for all women to wear the burka pursuant to sharia law?  How about death by stoning for all women failing to comply?

Yes, these are all wildly insane notions, and yet there is nothing to which one may point in terms of formal and enforceable principle that bars the enactment of such laws by necessity.  Forty years ago, who would have ever imagined laws such as PATRIOT and NDAA could ever see the light of enactment?  To have then predicted a day when such insanity would reign over the United States would have had those around you reaching for the phone to dial the nice men in white jackets to take you back to your padded cell and heavy thorazine load.  And yet, look at us now living under this leaden-grey pall as a matter of daily course, the Congress having enacted these outrageous assaults upon the sovereign rights of the people of America with virtual impunity.

It cannot be overly emphasized just how open-ended this process is and how unimaginably dangerous.  Please take the time to fully consider and appreciate just what it means to wield such arbitrary power.  Nothing is safe; not your rights, your health, family, possessions, investments, food sources, water, air, and so forth.  There is literally nothing that the legislators cannot touch precisely because there is no framework of principles to which the ordinary man may turn as a standard of assessment for judging that which the hand of government has wrought.  Without such a standard, there is nothing against which arbitrary law may be judged for legitimacy in accord with rational, complete, and correct principles of human relations.

Arguing against unjust statutes with "I don't like it", "it just feels wrong", and so forth avails one nothing.  One must be able to point to a rational and correct standard of judgment if they are to hold even the least reasonable hope of prevailing in such argumentation when resisting injustice.  But what should that standard be?

The answer may not be exactly easy, but there is at least one place where we can start: the very definition of "crime".  As we have previously seen, the current definitions are so freakishly absurd as to defy belief.  It is the circular meaninglessness of the word itself that must be corrected prior to moving forward.

Let us examine this a little more closely.  As is often the case, it is a good idea to begin with a definition or two.  From Black's Law Dictionary, "crime" is defined:


CRIME. A positive or negative act in violation of penal law; an offense against the State.

Note how the definition makes absolutely no reference to any irreducible, invariant, and objective concept or entity.  There is not so much as a single fundamental principle upon which the definition rests.  According to this definition, a crime is any act in violation of law, yet the metes and bounds of law are essentially nonexistent in any objective terms.  The metes and bounds as measured on Monday morning may not be the same as those measured by that afternoon.  "Crime" floats freely in the currents of the capricious ether.

In other words, the metes and bounds of that which constitutes a crime are whatever the legislator says they are and with which he can get away without those whom he ostensibly serves turning on him with torches and pitchforks.  Crime by this definition becomes nothing definite and upon which one may rely to learn, know, understand, and trust as a concept because it may be redefined at any time and for any reason whatsoever with no objective and rational rhyme or reason.  Crime may become the product of pure whim, devoid of any quality to which a man may point and call just, reasonable, or even tolerable.

As such, we are not only  not free, but are in fact  reduced to the status of abject slaves precisely because the legislator can in principle pass any law he wishes with almost guaranteed impunity.  This is the core principle at work in our world today.  There may be practical limitations at any given moment, but those can change arbitrarily and with no necessity of predictability.

Once again, from Black's, the definition of "law":


LAW. That which is laid down, ordained, or established.  That which must be obeyed and followed by citizens, subject to sanctions or legal consequences, is a "law."

Note here that nowhere does it make any mention of the source of establishment or by what objective basis law must be obeyed.  It simply states what law is.  Note also that the definitions of both "crime" and "law" are mutually circular in a vaguely implicit fashion. A crime is a violation of a law that defines a crime.  Taken as a whole, the true message is that law and crime are whatever those claiming power and authority say they are and for which the people will maintain tolerance.

When one stops to think about this with due care, this foundation upon which law as a practical matter is built is so shockingly flawed, so ridiculous, and so threatening to the rights and well being of the individual as to defy belief that this is the product of rational and benign minds.  No nominally sane and reasonable child, much less an adult, would accept this as sound and just.

For the sake of a better rounded awareness, let us finally take from Black's the definition for "justice", from which we may then understand what it means to be "just":

JUSTICE: In Jurisprudence. The constant and perpetual disposition to render every man his due.

Given these definitions and if we will be so bold as to presume that the goal of law is justice, how possibly can justice be served if laws and crimes are by their very definitions utterly arbitrary with no principled and immutable mechanism of restraint?  The crystal clear and unequivocal answer is that it cannot be served under such conditions with any faith and reliability from the standpoints of those whom the law purports to serve.

If this is indeed the case, what then is to be done about it, if anything?

The answer, in practice, is difficult.  In theory, however, it is rather simple, elegant, and straightforward.  Let us therefore confine ourselves with the theory, for once we come to apprehend the what, it then becomes better possible to determine the how.

If we begin at the beginning by asking the question of why we should even have law, the concept of justice rapidly comes to mind: to render every man his due.  But what is a man's due?  That answer has proven elusive for many, yet it is plain and simple: his rights.  Nothing more, and nothing less.   For a brief discussion on that topic, see "The Canon Of Individual Sovereignty".  The Canon derives a small handful of fundamental principles by which all proper human relations are conducted.  It provides the irreducible and invariant foundation upon which all other human endeavors are built and to which they must yield and stand secondary.  Without this immutable barrier beyond which none may pass, there exists no solid, reliable, and trustworthy standard by which one may judge his own actions as well as those of his fellows.  It is the simple standard by which one may know right action from wrong.

With such a standard in hand, one may then turn to the notion of justice, which by the given definition concerns itself with ensuring that which is due to all men, which is nothing more or less than his rights, his just claims to life.  Having apprehended this knowledge, it then becomes possible to discard the hopelessly wrong definitions of "crime" and "law" in favor of the correct ones.  To that end, let us see whether we can at least arrive at a respectable first draft of each term.

Redefinition of CRIME: Any unjustifiable act, whether positive or negative, whereby the actor brings demonstrable, qualified, and possibly quantifiable harm to another without the other's consent and in violation of the his rights.

Note the careful wording.  In order for a crime to have been committed, the act must bring harm to another  in an unjustifiable way and that harm must be objectively demonstrable in terms of character and possibly quantity.  By this definition, murder is clearly a crime, whereas killing in defense of life, limb, and property is not because defense is a justifying basis for action.  Likewise, though perhaps emotionally less convincing for some, if one man kills another as per the other's request and it can be shown that the request was made freely and without coercion, no crime has occurred.

Theft is a crime because the thief has brought harm to his victim in the form of removing property that is not his to take.

Redefinition of LAW: That which is laid down, ordained, or established to address issues of crimes committed by one person or group against another person or group.  That which must be obeyed and followed by citizens, such that no crime be committed and to which one may be subject to sanctions or legal consequences for violation, is a "law."

With these two new definitions at hand, the practical matter of law in both terms of enactment and administration take on an entirely new character.  Because "crime" is clearly defined such that its metes and bounds are specified in terms of irreducible principles or its derivatives, the formulation of law is now constrained because "law" is now defined very specifically as addressing "issues of crime".  If a proposed bill fails to address an issue of crime, then even if it be enacted it is still not a law and people would therefore be under no obligation to comply with its mandates and restrictions.

Additionally, this restructuring of law based on the new definitions eliminates all crimes mala prohibita because no harm may be demonstrated to have been caused.  For example, if I carry a firearm or other weapon for all morally legitimate purposes, no man or institution may charge me with a crime because the bearing of arms brings no harm to others.  If Johnny Dumb decides he is going to start purchasing heroin and inject it into his veins, the act per se brings no unwelcome harm to others and therefore no crime exists. If, however, after having injected himself with heroin he gets into his automobile and injures someone due to his drug induced incapacity, he would be guilty of having brought harm to another, a crime, and his use of heroin and the irresponsible choice he made to operate a vehicle resulting in injury to a third part could well be regarded as an aggravating factor.

If justice is indeed a worthy goal and is to be properly served, the law and its practice must be sensible to the common man, reasonable, reliable, and must engender a sense of trust in those whom it ostensibly serves. It must, in a word, be just. Anything less than this renders law of less than zero value, for it becomes the agent and instrument of the very harms from which it is supposed to protect us.

While I am sure my proposed alterations could strand some improvement, I am confident that this is a reasonable start.  I hold no illusions of this ever coming to pass, but it is nevertheless a good thing to give people something to which to turn their thoughts, especially in times as troubled as these where usurpers and tyrants run amok across the face of the planet in endless violation and destruction of human freedom and prosperity.

Until next time, please accept my fondest wishes.









The Devil's Advocate

Generally speaking, I despise so-called "Hollywood". Literally speaking, 99%+++ of what they have produced is not fit for the lowest of human filth to view, much less decent folk - and yes, I am just brash enough to make the distinction between the worst and the better among us in this era of "it's all good" relativism. But there is that almost infinitesimal proportion of work the conception and execution of which has been so keenly inspired as to nearly excuse the hopeless wreckage of all its sibling productions. One of those is "The Devil's Advocate" with Al Pacino and so surprisingly, Keanu Reeves, whose next best accomplishment in terms of film was "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure".


The Devil's Advocate contains many small gems of sorts - most of them setups for larger coups, but all of them worthy. There are, however, the two passages delivered by Pacino's perfectly cast character that drive this film to yon dizzying stratospheric heights. Between the two, there is the exchange between Pacino and Reeves about free will, another gem.


My purpose in posting these here is that these two vignettes within a larger story so very adeptly distill the most strident of all human proclivities in such a way as to drive home with something of the most slightly understated fury why humanity is in such deep trouble, why They are winning the battle for the future of the human race, why liberty-oriented people are losing, and to be depressingly blunt why things are likely not going to work out too well for us on the whole. There is always a chance that the tiger may change its stripes, but let us not ignore the statistical reality in the process of hoping for the best.


If perchance you have never seen this film, unlike most others I can recommend this one highly. The language and some of the notions are coarse, so be warned if perchance that sort of thing offends you. I deem it all well worth cutting through to get to the good stuff, which is very good.


This first gem is from the scene where Reeve's character is relaying to Pacino's the message from "Eddie Barzoon" about maybe ratting the firm out to a government commission investigating them, the Devil being the speaker:


"You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire.


You build egos the size of cathedrals; fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies until every human becomes an aspiring emperor; becomes his own god.


Where can you go from there?


As we're scrambling from one deal to the next who's got his eye on the planet as the air thickens, the water sours? Even bees' honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity; and it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There's no chance to think, to prepare.


It's buy futures... sell futures... when there is no future.


We got a runaway train, boy. We got a billion Eddie Barzoons all jogging into the future. Every one of them is getting ready to fist-fuck God's ex-planet, lick their fingers clean as they reach out toward their pristine cybernetic keyboards to tote up their fucking billable hours.


And then it hits home. You got to pay your own way, Eddie. It's a little late in the game to buy out now. Your belly's too full, your dick is sore, your eyes are bloodshot and you're screaming for someone to help.


But guess what?


There's no one there! You're all alone, Eddie.


You're God's special little creature."



The second comes right after Reeve's character's wife commits suicide and his mother confesses to him who his father is (Pacino's character). This one is dialogue and in order to more fully understand it, you will need to watch the film:


"[Devil] You were right about one thing. I have been watching. Couldn't help myself. Watching. Waiting. Holding my breath.
But I'm no puppeteer, Kevin. I don't make things happen. Doesn't work like that.

[Lomax] What'd you do to Mary Ann?

[Devil] Free will. It's like butterfly wings. Once touched, they never get off the ground. I only set the stage. You pull your own strings.

[Lomax] What did you do to Mary Ann?

[Devil] A gun? In here?

[Lomax] Goddamn it, what did you do to my wife?

[Devil] Well... on a scale of one to ten, ten being the most depraved act of sexual theater known to man, one being your average Friday night run-through at the Lomaxes', I'd say, not to be immodest... Mary Ann and I got it on at about seven.

[Lomax] Fuck you!(starts shooting the devil multiple times)

[Devil] Got me! Got me! Yes! Step it up, Son! Come on! That's good! You got to hold on to that fury! That's the last thing to go! That's the final hiding place. It's the final fig leaf.

[Lomax] Who are you?

[Devil] Who am I? Who are you?

Never lost a case.

Why?

Why do you think?

Because you're so fucking good?

[Lomax] Yes.

[Devil] But why?

[Lomax] Because you're my father?

[Devil] I'm a little more than that, Kevin.

Awfully hot in that courtroom, wasn't it?

'What's the game plan, Kevin? It was a nice run, Kev. Had to close out some day. Nobody wins them all.'

[Lomax] What are you?

[Devil] I have so many names.

[Lomax] Satan.

[Devil] Call me Dad.

[Lomax] Mary Ann, she knew it. She knew it. She knew it, so you destroyed her.

[Devil] You're blaming me for Mary Ann? I hope you're kidding.

Mary Ann, you could have saved her anytime you liked. All she wanted was love.

Hey, you were too busy.

[Lomax] That's a lie.

[Devil] Face it, you started looking to better-deal her the minute you got here.

[Lomax] That's not true. You don't know what we had!

[Devil] Hey, I'm on your side!

[Lomax] You're a liar!

[Devil] There's nothing out there for you! Don't be such a fucking chump! Stop deluding yourself! I told you to take care of your wife!

What did I say? 'The world would understand.'

Didn't I say that?

What did you do? 'You know what scares me, John? I leave the case, she gets better and then I hate her for it.'

Remember?

[Lomax] I know what you did. You set me up!

[Devil] Who told you to pull out all the stops on Mr. Gettys? Who made that choice?

[Lomax] It's entrapment. You set me up.

[Devil] And Moyez! The direction you took! Popes, swamis, snake handlers, all feeding at the same trough. Whose ideas were those?

[Lomax] You played me!

[Devil] It was a test! Your test! And Cullen! Knowing he was guilty! Seeing those pictures! What did you do? You put that lying bitch on the stand!

[Lomax] You brought me in. You put me there! You made her lie!

[Devil] I don't do that, Kevin! That day on the subway, what did I say to you? What were my words to you?

Maybe it was your time to lose. You didn't think so.

[Lomax] Lose? I don't lose! I win! I win! I'm a lawyer! That's my job! That's what I do!

[Devil] I rest my case. Vanity... is definitely my favorite sin.

Kevin, it's so basic. Self-love. The all-natural opiate.

It's not that you didn't care for Mary Ann, Kevin... it's just that you were a little more involved with someone else. Yourself.

[Lomax] You're right. I did it all. I let her go.

[Devil] Don't be too hard on yourself, Kevin. You wanted something more. Believe me.

[Lomax] I left her behind and just kept going.

[Devil] You can't keep punishing yourself."

Snip some comparatively irrelevant dialogue and it continues:

"[Lomax] What do you want from me?

[Devil] I want you to be yourself.

You know, I'll tell you, boy... guilt... it's like a bag of fucking bricks. All you got to do is set it down.

I know what you're going through.

I've been there.

[Lomax's "sister"] Just come here. Come here. Let it go.

[Lomax] I can't do that.

[Devil] Who are you carrying all those bricks for?

God?

Is that it?

God?

I'll tell you... let me give you a little inside information about God.

God likes to watch. He's a prankster.

Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do? I swear, for his own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time.

Look, but don't touch.

Touch, but don't taste.

Taste, but don't swallow.

And while you're jumping from one foot to the next, what is He doing? He's laughing his sick, fucking ass off! He's a tightass! He's a sadist! He's an absentee landlord!

Worship that? Never!

[Lomax] 'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,' is that it?

[Devil] Why not? I'm here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began!

I've nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have! I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him!

Why? Because I never rejected him,in spite of all his imperfections! I'm a fan of man! I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist.

Who, in their right mind Kevin, could possibly deny the 20th century was entirely mine? All of it, Kevin! All of it. Mine. I'm peaking, Kevin. It's my time now. It's our time."




And there you have it. Humanity statistically wrapped up neatly in a concise and frighteningly precise nutshell.


The question that remains to be answered is this: are there enough good people left who are willing to do what needs doing - the ugly things; the abominal things; the monstrous things to set this world free? And if so, is the race worth freeing? What of it? What is the likely reality of a freed, technologically enabled, self-absorbed humanity? All of we who presume to hold the goal of human freedom, even if only in America, need to sit quietly and alone or perhaps with a small number of trusted and like-minded friends and family and think about this very carefully. I am not sure that the spectre is particularly appealing.

As I see it, the simple freeing of humanity would be an unmitigated disaster. Why? Because people have no experience with actual freedom but only with the pretty slavery wherein the Master's beneficent hand guides the "free man" at the boundaries of his cage so that he will not stray into grave sin, vis-a-vis the petty. This is where the Christian ethic applied to real life has failed catastrophically and monumentally. And the Godless progressives and other such vermin have no hay to make in that black sunshine because their ethics are Christian in their very fabric. Let none of those raving imbeciles fool themselves into believing otherwise. To the extent and in the manner the Christian Church has failed so spectacularly, so have the others - the anti-religious, the stooge-atheists because their standard of ethics are taken from the precise same book.

Furthermore, let us be crystal clear that the Christian ethic, per se, is not what has failed here, for that is only a conceptual body of principles and tenets by which one may choose to live. The bitch and the hitch is that the ethics in themselves mean NOTHING until they are interpreted and applied, and it is we as a race who have done so poor a job of application. The really scary part in all of this is that most of it has been done ostensibly with nothing but the best of intentions.

It was good intention that enslaved the human race in the manacles of imposed love and caring, thereby ripping from it its liberty. It was the self-absorbed church that forced itself upon the world with the sword and the book, perverting the beauty within and changing it into the evil against which the world now thinks it rails, unaware that its own book is the precise same one at heart, only using slightly different wording. It is the cowardice of men that has enslaved humanity; the steadfast and categorical refusal to accept men and the world as they more truly are. Rather, they have adopted this wildly demented masturbatory fantasy of an idealized world that can never exist because it is based upon a world populated by non-human creatures.


There are so many layers, each entangled in endless convolution with the others such that it numbs the mind of the intelligent man who endeavors to understand it. Complete, precise, and correct analysis is unlikely to be achievable. The good news, however, is that it is not necessary. To begin from a clean sheet with principles in hand is the ONLY thing that will provide the basis for our salvation and deliverance back into freedom, once again assuming that we are even worth saving.


A key here lies not in just having the intellectual chops to dope it all out, but the courage and moral and intestinal fortitude to accept the seemingly harsh realities that accompany one along the path toward the goal. Good intentions that work against the wills of people who commit no criminal acts is WRONG no matter what the perceived greater good is. You want a poster child for "crime" - well there you have it - the do-gooder forcing his unwelcome help upon his fellows. In the end, the only person the do-gooder is serving is himself because at the bottom of it all he does not give the least damn about what the targets of his beneficence want. He cares only about what HE wants - to feel better about all the things in the world that he perceives to be unjust; to feel he has righted some terrible wrong and made the world a better place by hook or by crook. This is pure egotism of the worst form, for it is unregulated, non-self-limiting, and so blindly self-serving as to be frightening to even the bravest among men.


A truly pathetic element in all of this is that the forcible do-gooder operates under the delusional presumption that he does all of this devoid of the ego of the individualist. Unlike the individualist, when faced with failure they refuse to demur and they do this because they are devoid of all humility and human decency, all ostensible good intentions notwithstanding. They are the epitome - the very definition of "evil" and "disease" because in the end, everything they do is solely for themselves and not in the least measure for those whom them purport to help. They will take any measure they feel is needed and with which they think they can get away to achieve their objectives.


Let me now be clear as to how such people are to be treated: all who attempt to use force, and here I mean that which ultimately reduces to the physical, may and perhaps ought to be killed on the spot, without hesitation or compunction, and without equivocation. I do not care if it is police, Congress, their agents, robbers, rapists, or the city dog catcher. If one is proceeding without having committed a crime, and here I mean a real crime as in mala in se, vis-a-vis phony baloney crimes mala prohibita, any force applied may be justifiably met with opposing force up to and including that which is lethal. On this I am unequivocal. There is no other way to put an end to the insanity of those who would murder us with their stated good intentions. If we are indeed free beings in our fabric, and I contend that we are, then there exists no authority above that of the individual and all who believe otherwise are deluded. If you think about it, the whole notion of "justice" bases upon the tacit assumption of entitlement, and is questionable.

Truly, we are in quite a corner.  We want what we want, but so much of what we want is pure, suicidal poison.  The great majority of us are just like addicts.  We, in fact, are addicts and such people will pursue that which they crave unto their own destruction.  We are addicted to all manner of morbidity.

The question facing each of us during every moment of every day we live is what shall be our next choice?  What shall we choose to pursue?  What shall we shun?  What sort of person will I be at this very moment? 

Most seem to avoid the conscious choices to the greatest degree practicality will allow, for it is the effort and the accountability that are the ultimate objects of evasion for the common man.  These two things, work and responsibility, are the two most despised, reviled, hated, and feared things in the small, narrow, and shallow world of the Common Man.  Were it not so, Empire would never had the least chance of gaining a toehold in the circles of humanity.  There could have been no Roman Empire, no Third Reich nor Soviet Union, Red China, or any of the other wildly toxic and mortally dangerous human social organizations that have foisted upon the body of humankind the most bitter miseries that no free men could possibly imagine prior to actual experience.

It is clear that continuing on our current philosophical path is leading us nowhere that any sane person wants to go.  Therefore, "what now?" arises prominently as a sore thumb before the eyes of the world.  Indeed, what now?  Do we cave in to the One-World contingent?  Do we fight?  Do nothing and hope for the best?  I cannot answer for anyone but myself and as things stands at the time of this writing it is my decision not to willingly capitulate to the overwhelming forces that are driving the individual's ability to act in accord with his inborn freedom to oblivion.  It is my opinion that there is in fact a good fight to be fought and, having stepped into the breach, I have as yet no intentions of relenting.

As for you, ask yourself, "what will it be?"  If you are too afraid, too lazy, too bemused with the trinkets before you, that is OK.  Not everyone is built for this.  Settle yourself and have the best life you are able.  But if perchance you feel as do I that there are things for which doing battle is worthwhile, then think long and carefully what it really means to commit yourself to the cause of your own freedom.  Make no decision in haste or without its due consideration, but if after having diligently done so you decide the cause is worthy of you, then settle yourself to the commitment and be at peace with your choice.

It seems I have wandered a bit from my original intentions.  So be it.  I leave you to your thoughts now and wish you the best of everything that life has to offer.  May your health be good and your wealth satisfactory.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Pretty Slavery: What It Is And How To Identify And Expose The Fraud

Several years ago I coined the term "pretty slavery" and have used it many times in my communications with others to convey the notion of the gilt cage.  In a past article, I set forth the notion that freedom is an all or nothing deal.  There are no "degrees" where freedom is concerned.  One is either free or is not.  There is nothing between the two.  Degrees only present themselves under conditions of oppression and slavery where the master or tyrant decides what shall be allowed and what shall not.  This is by necessity an arbitrary position regardless of how well intended the tyrant may be, for no matter how benevolent one's master, you are always subject to that over which you have no control.  There is nothing in principle that constrains the master's hand; nothing to prevent his presumably reasonable base of principles from wandering into whim and caprice.

All that aside, there is nothing in credibly derived principle that endows one man to act as the master of another.  The Canon Of Individual Sovereignty makes this quite solidly plain.  Therefore, no matter how one attempts to slice the pie, he will find it quite impossible to concoct a logically valid basis for one subset of a population dominating another.  Dominion over others cannot occur except as a felonious action where those dominated have not given their consent.

This may seem intuitively obvious when one looks to the histories of personalities such as Stalin and Mao, whose colorless brutality made obvious to the world that they were monsters needing little more than tail, horns, and a pitchfork to complete the image.  Somewhat less obvious are the examples epitomized by men such as Hitler whose personal charisma and charm drew in millions of Germans who thereby fell for his lies and helped usher forth the destruction of most of the European continent and tens of millions of lives.

It is therefore not the obvious monster of whom we must beware, but rather of the one with the smiling faces of our beloved aunts and uncles - whose words soothe us, set us at ease and comfort, and promise us great peace, happiness, wealth, health, and endless prosperity.  Their appeals and arguments often carry such brute emotional force that we are compelled to forsake our normally good habits of circumspection.  We forget to ask the more pointed questions or pursue answers with yet more querying.  This is a terrible error into which even otherwise intelligent, smart, diligent, and careful adults fall and it is rapidly proving to be humanity's undoing.

What, then, is "pretty slavery"?  Simply put, it is the gilt cage wherein one is allowed enough of what one wants such that he tolerates all the other violations of his rights.  The characteristic of pretty slavery that is the greatest danger is that it is tolerable and even acceptable to those who subscribe to it.  In a great many instances it is, in fact, demanded.

Why, you may ask yourself, would anyone demand to be a slave?  The answer comes in two parts. Firstly, the subscriber often is unaware of his status as a slave, usually and precisely because he can do enough of the things he wants such that he sees no reason to "rock the boat", or rationalizing the nonsense that one has to make sacrifices or cannot always have what he wants, and so forth down a considerable list.  Secondly, he accepts the shackles of his status because he is seeking to get something at no cost to him, which is to say, something for nothing.  He does not care enough not to trade away B, C, D, E, etc., if he can be provided with A.

There are many aspects to this and the layers are numerous and possessing many entanglements and convolutions with each other.

The gay man who wants to be able to marry his partner will be satisfied if allowed that privilege in exchange for his silence when the men in charge prohibit his neighbor from keeping and bearing arms because he has no personal interest in such rights or perhaps even disagrees with them.  In other words, if the concerns of his neighbors do not coincide with his own, their rights become meaningless at best to him, and so long as he has gotten what he wants he will remain otherwise compliant and tolerant of tyrannies that do not touch him too objectionably.

The fundamentalist religious man, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or what have you is often more than happy to see the rights of the gay man trampled into the dust so long as that nativity scene can be displayed in the town square or his children allowed to pray in school.  To those people the rights of their neighbors whose interests do not coincide, or in this case perhaps even conflicts with their own, mean nothing to them.  Less than nothing, in fact, because he often finds them inimical.

Pretty slavery means lifting not an eyebrow when one's fellows rights are stampeded into the dust by law and those who enforce it with physical brutality so long as you have enough of what you want.  Pretty slavery is the result of having been bought off by a mob of dangerous thugs whose tacit message to the slave is this: "now that we are agreed about what you are, the only question remaining is that of price."  That is the pitiable truth about the man who tolerates his pretty slavery, the only thing differentiating one from the other being the price at which he is willing to sell his soul and those of his fellows, the latter being the sin for which there may be no forgiving.

Do what thou wilt with thine own life, but presume not to dispose of mine without consult or consent.

Pretty slavery is indeed a fraud because it is slavery that is masqueraded either as "freedom" or as being "necessary".  We already know that it is the farthest possible thing from freedom, but what of the necessity angle that is so often employed with such nearly universal success against the average man who is either incapable of or unwilling to make use of his brain for something even slightly more than a hat rack?

We have heard nearly every president in our lifetime utter the assertion that "everyone must make sacrifices". Oh really?  Says who?  And what sacrifices are we to make?  Who decides what they shall be, who shall make them, and who will be exempt?  On what basis are these decisions made and how did the people making them acquire the authority to do so?  These are but the first in a long list of questions that need to be asked and the answers, such as they may be forthcoming, must be very carefully scrutinized for odor.

I was once in a meeting that had been called by our district manager at AT&T.  He attempted to foist this sacrifice nonsense upon us regarding a now-forgotten issue.  The room full with about 70 peoples sat silently as the manager went on with his dreary dictates.  At one point he said, "we can't eat steak every night, can we?", to which those present silently acquiesced, some even nodding in agreement.  My close friend and associate, Charles, by that time had had enough and very unceremoniously called the manager on his baloney by asserting, "I do".  The manager was so taken aback by the challenge to his phony nonsense that he really had nothing to say save to toss out his weakly offered counter that "most" people could not afford to eat steak every night.  Upon what he made that assertion is anyone's guess, but in typical fashion the people in the room got all uncomfortable, which was very visibly the case based on facial expressions and body language, and remained silent.  After the meeting adjourned, Charles and the manager continued the exchange and I admired his having taken a stand against the latter's ridiculous comments offered to make the decisions in question more palatable to his people.

When those around you, be they political pros, acquaintances, or even strangers break out their manure shovels and start piling on the bullshit about how your status as a slave is actually freedom or that it is necessary for whatever reason such as "fairness", it behooves one to expose the nonsense by asking the questions beginning with "why?" and "who says".  Keep chipping away until the shoveler runs out of his stock in trade.  Defy the lies by challenging at every opportunity those who perpetrate and perpetuate them.

Howard Zinn is credited with with the following quotation:

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem."


Do as you will, of course, but may I respectfully recommend you reject slavery in all its forms, regardless of how innocuous or "necessary" it may seem?

As always, please accept my best wishes.

More Commentary On The Fraud Known As "The State"



On another forum a poster made the following comment regarding the seemingly incongruous concept of the "state" claiming ownership of land as posed in a video titled, "You Can Always Leave", which may be viewed here.


"I had never heard the argument about how the state cannot legitimately claim ownership of all the land."

To this I responded as follows.

Actually, that part is a pretty glaring error in the conceptual structure of the video because there is no such thing as "the state" per se. Given this, the issue becomes even more pointed. If there is no such thing as the state then who, exactly, is claiming ownership of... well, anything to which the "state" label is applied? What does "state property" even mean?

Because there is no state per se, the term "the state" as commonly [mis]used must perforce mean something other than what most people appear to think. The question is, "what?" Who, exactly, claims ownership to all this property for which we are forced, ultimately at the point of the sword, to pay? Who, exactly, is it that claims authority to take from us that which we may not wish to give? If there is no "state", then what is there?

Individuals. 

Individual human beings who come together to act as a group with sufficiently common purpose to give the tacit and at times explicit appearance of a monobloc entity; a single and relatively massive and powerful organism that I like to call an effective "superorganism".

These appearances are no happenstance. Indeed, they are absolutely essential to the psychological design of so-called "government", for without them the state would be visible to even the dullest eyes as what it truly is: a group of individuals acting in concert to assume and exercise authority over others to which they have no rightful claim. This purported authority rests upon a foundation of physical force, and as our history demonstrates beyond any argument, that force is routinely used freely and murderously as "the state" deems fit. Those who claim to act as agents of this impossible-to-locate entity rely upon the hoodwinked nature of those over whom they reign to get away quite literally with murder, assault, and theft on a daily basis.

Government buildings, for example, are built as imposing edifices not by accident, but by definite design to fool the rest into accepting the litany of fog-shrouded innuendo upon which their perceptions and understandings of what "the state" is and thereby securing their consent to be reigned over, if only tacitly so.  They are designed to be imposing and thereby to intimidate, the medium in this case being very much the message.  Empire is the single greatest, most successful, and long surviving scam in human history and the notion of "the state" is its central pillar.

Testament to the power of this lie is the fact that even though there may be no conscious conspiracy afoot to expropriate the cooperation of individuals through the agency of the concept of "the state", the expropriation occurs nonetheless. The "state" survives more or less intact as a conceptual entity generation after generation not necessarily because there exist cabals of evil, faceless, hand-wringing monsters whose long-lived dynasties exist for naught but to rule the rest, though such may exist from time to time, but because the drive to so rule is part and parcel of human psychological makeup. Therefore, there will always be those who will crave the power to make the rest do as they bid. This is part of what we are as human animals and that is why those who wish to remain free shall always reside behind the 8-ball. Free men will always have to fight against the monsters who would subdue them and take that to which they are not entitled.

When Pandora's box was opened, one of the little creatures that escaped just happened to be the single most dangerous evil in all creation: the concept of Empire. Empire takes and perverts with unimaginable extremity the natural and otherwise good human fascination with power and awakens a monster in the individual that might otherwise sleep eternally. The enormous raw power of our cognitive minds is a two-edged sword in that when perverted, the dangers a single individual may come to foist upon others becomes mind numbing. So much more the case when he has recruited the aid of friends and the principles of organization.

The "state" is worse than a lie: it is a bullshit. Mere lies are most often discovered in the longer run, but well crafted bullshit takes the truth and bends it in such ways that the effective lie it constitutes can become impossible for the average man to identify and even when pinpointed he finds himself incapable of accepting it. This is part of the genius that began with religion: inculcate the young with the belief system you want and as adults they will find it nearly impossible to shed it. The people who perpetuate this are like the vampires in horror movies where once bitten, the victim no longer wishes to escape. That is the situation we have had at hand within the borders of human Empire for at least 8 thousand years.

Individuals and administrations have made terrible errors in the past and still do today. The outlandish tyrants of Rome, England, China - the Napoleons, Georges, Stalins, and Maos arise and appear to be eventually vanquished, yet Empire remains perennially and that has been its greatest victory. Just consider that with some care for a moment. The individual tyrants and even their minions by the thousands and perhaps even millions in some cases are wiped from the face of the earth. The vanquishers, those noble fighters for equity and what is right, march joyously out of the maw of hell, only to turn themselves immediately around to march back in. Why? Because their minds are so utterly and hopelessly poisoned at the most fundamental conceptual levels in terms of what they see as politically necessary that they cannot see beyond their most basic and tacit assumptions about what it means to live properly with one's fellows.  They cannot let go of those things they assume to be absolutely essential, lest some horror befall the world in their absence.

In the end, people become the inmates of their own, single-celled conceptual prisons, the foundations of which their fellows helped them build in childhood and which from then on they willfully add to the thickness and height of the walls and bars throughout a lifetime. A people will revolt under a tyrant, defeat him, and then almost immediately continue his tyranny, then wonder why nothing has changed. 

Romania is a very good modern example of this where a group of people apprehended the dementedly evil Ceaucescu and rightly murdered him. While some of his tyrannical excesses were brought to a halt, the fundamental basis of his tyrannies, none of which he invented but rather merely inherited from his forebears, survived essentially intact such that today the most fundamental elements of "his" tyranny remains perfectly intact as if nothing had ever disturbed it.  The only changes are apparent, superficial, and thereby essentially devoid of substantive effect.

We hear and read about these tacit assumptions daily in statements such as "what about the roads?" As if trails have not been blazed without the aid of rank tyranny by the "state".  Yet, people are so blind to their own presumptions, so utterly convinced of the rectitude of their assumptions that they are unable to escape the mental box, the "prison", into which they have caged themselves.

Mind is the great destroyer, for where it goes the butt follows.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

A Few More Reasons Why Humanity's State Of Inherent Freedom Remains In Grave Peril



Elsewhere in cyberspace someone wrote,


"You can't legislate morality ass clown."


Said the blind man to his deaf daughter in reference to some rather childish, yet revealing comments made by former senator Rick Santorum about what the Republican party was, and was not. To that I responded as follows.


They (religious extremists) think they can and this renders them equally dangerous to those at the other end of the supposed spectrum. Do not fool yourselves into thinking that such people would not have your necks under their boots were they given the opportunity.


Extremists of any flavor, whether religious or otherwise pose essentially equal threats to freedom and if liberty is to survive (and at this point that is in some very grim doubt) the day will almost certainly come where they will have to be "handled", and that can mean anything from simply managing them with some political clarity to open warfare.


Here again we see the perils that beset human freedom at every turn. Some people seem driven to the will to dominate others, though not always in manners that are obvious to the casual observer. A huge proportion of us, most likely a vast majority in fact, are terrified of actual freedom. They want all the benefits with none of the associated costs. In other words, they want something for nothing and in a universe that as yet provides no discernible free lunches this poses a very serious problem for everyone. Some very few of us want actual freedom. The rest want pretty slavery where the Master magically pulls those free lunches out of thin air and beneficently dispenses them to one and all. No worries there at all, right? Nothing could possibly go wrong there, right?


The bottom line for living freely is stark and perhaps unpleasant: in order to become and remain free one must be willing most literally to butcher his fellows who would trespass upon that freedom. There is no way around this. Law in itself is nothing. Principle left fallow is nothing. Talking nicely to empty headed animals avails one nothing. Talking harshly to them gains them practically nothing. It is naught but the sword that keeps the barbarians polite. Make no mistake about the fact that at the end of the day your "nice" neighbors who crave their particular visions of pretty slavery are not your friends. They are potentially as bitter an enemy as any you might imagine, for they would offer your children up for immediate and unceremonious slaughter if they thought it would get them what they want, which is that vision of paradise at no cost to them. They don't give a damn who pays, so long as it is not them. They are thieves every bit as much as the man who dons a mask and sticks a gun in your ribs for the sake of taking your wallet, only far less honest than the mugger, for at least he does his own work.


Bear always in mind the enormous raw psychological power of well crafted visions of pretty slavery. They are so viscerally appealing - so right in their appearances even to otherwise intelligent and careful adults - that it becomes easy to fall for the bait. Just as with the old vampire movies like Salem's Lot where those somehow saved from the ultimate fate say once bitten they no longer wanted to get away, but to remain in the monster's clutches, so it is with the right visions of pretty slavery. People get swept away with the visions of golden "freedom" and strong happy children and social order, never asking "at what cost, this?" That is the mistake - of wanting something so much that habits of good reason fall by the wayside.


The song of the Siren is nearly irresistible.


No matter how appealing a story line may appear to you, always ask yourself what the costs will be. This is most especially true for the vision of actual freedom because how can you want something you do not fully understand? What is the manna? Whence does it come? Who provides it? How shall they be compensated? For whom shall it be provided? Who shall compensate? How much shall be the bill? And so forth. Do not forget that nothing is free, not even our freedom. A paradox for the ages, perhaps.


When one has well in his grasp the principles of proper human relations the answers become easy to find. When difficulties arise in one's mind it is ALWAYS due to the desire for pretty slavery - for getting something for nothing - for avoiding the costs one does not want to pay. There are no exceptions to this. Proper human relations, which is the manifestation of proper human freedom, gives rise to some unpleasant truths. Some people will not "make it". Some children will die. Others will be stricken with disease, or go hungry and without homes. Some will be forced to live without a large flat-panel television; oh the humanity!


These are some of the costs associated with actual, proper human freedom. While there is no "government" to save you from your unfortunate circumstances or poorly considered choices, there is also none to step upon your rights. The pretty slaver wants the former without the possibility of the latter. 


The pretty slaver wants that which can never be realized. The pretty slaver expects magical and saint-like perfection to govern his world by hands no more adept and free of sin and vice than his own. It is a wish so violently disconnected from even the the most remote threads of reality as to defy one's credulity. How can anyone accept such barking insanity in the least measure? Yet, the vast majority of people in these United States and indeed the world have been trained to subscribe to this rank dementia with clamoring that flies well past the feverish. A goodly proportion of those people would unhesitatingly see you sacrificed upon the altar of their golden vision in order to have that for which they shamelessly fiend. Your desires, your rights, your very life is as nothing to such people. They are no different from all the fools in Germany who stood tall and raised their arms in the NAZI salute for Hitler. They are no different from those who meekly stood by as Mao and Stalin ran roughshod over their fellows, thankful in their quaking cowardice to have been passed over... this time.


These people, your neighbors, those wantonly ignorant and mindlessly greedy poltroons who are willing to accept any political idiocy so long as it affects someone else, would turn on you in an instant if they sensed profit in it or if you threatened their status as free lunchers. So long as they are not inconvenienced they are content to tolerate no-knock raids upon the man next door, always rationalizing that it is none of their business. With few exceptions this has been the increasingly overarching human proclivity since ancient times, having grown exponentially over the past century. Back when, at least, there were apparently far more willing to come to the defense of the rights of their neighbors as written history appears to indicate. Today, however, that characteristic of the race of men is all but extinct, Joe Average now drawing the shades when a ruckus breaks out as he draws a sigh of relief that is it not his house to which armed men in black have arrived and caved in the door, shot the dog, wrecked the house and stomped wordlessly away after realizing they came to the wrong address. Relief that it is not him being dragged away in handcuffs, having been beaten senseless and bloody for having had the temerity to question their actions, the children on their way to "the system", and the wife left to live under a bridge with the house under an order of civil forfeiture.


This is the reality of our nation today, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole truth is so ugly, so frightening, and so impossibly nauseating that most people simply cannot - WILL NOT - consider it. It is simpler to shut it out - drown it out with the next big game on TV, remote in one hand, beer or pecker in the other and the will to tell oneself that all is well.


It is this reality against which we enter the breech. Never let this truth escape your thoughts, no matter how oppressive it may seem, for it is an essential element of that bare thread by which we hope for salvation from abject material slavery at the hands of the good intentions of our fellows. Facing this truth requires courage. Real deal, no bullshit courage as if we were going to war. Without it, we are lost. Do not forget this.


As always, until next time please accept my best wishes.