Sunday, February 10, 2019

A Key Failing Of Humanity

Short installment time.

Humans are full of failings.  We cheat on our spouses, take more than that to which we are entitled, beat, rob, rape, war, and so on down a depressingly long list.

While all these failings may be considered equivalent after a fashion, in the context of proper human freedom, one error stands above the rest: tolerance of the intolerable.

"Governments", "states", or whatever you wish to call the mobs of humans who live to trespass upon their fellows to the greatest degree with which they can get away, do just that: trespass upon the rights of free men to the extent that those men become de facto serfs, and even outright slaves.  It makes no matter how pretty the cage may be that these mobs build around their subjects, for they remain as cages, limiting the rightful prerogatives of their fellow human beings with absolutely zero authority to do so.

And what do those people do who have been trodden upon roughshod?  Nothing of substance; not a whit.  Speech is all well and good, as may be other avenues of redress; but what happens when speech fails, Congress ignores your pleas and demands, and the courts make rulings that serve only to retrench the violations that have been foisted upon you without consent?  That is the point where material non-equivocation shows its utility, but only if people are willing to assume the attendant risks.

When in 1803 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Marbury v. Madison, they assumed a power to which they were not Constitutionally authorized, the act thereby constituting a usurpation.  The usurpation in question was that of the power to "interpret" the Constitution, what has come to be called "judicial review", a rather deceptive term.  With judicial review, SCOTUS assumed the authority to dictate to the nation which statutes were Law and which were not.  This is particularly ironic in the face of the fact that part of the Marbury ruling states:

"...an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void."

All at once, the SCOTUS acknowledges the supremacy of the Constitution, and by extension, the full blossom of the rights of all men, and usurps the power to decide which acts are or not repugnant, apparently failing to consider the two-edged nature of that sword.  In the hands of the righteous and competent man, judicial review might serve as a defense against governmental overreach.  In the hand of incompetents or malefactors, it can and has served to destroy the ability of men to exercise their rights without the perils of the state landing squarely upon them in crushing, life destroying fashion, which is precisely what happens to people today on a basis so common as to be outright vulgar.

But what could good Americans have done to prevent this false assumption of invalid authority by SCOTUS?  Firstly, they could have endeavored to make themselves aware and to spread that knowledge far and wide, that the people of this land would learn of the perfidy of a small cadre of their fellow Americans.  Secondly, and in some respects perhaps more importantly, they could have gone armed to the court and deposed the scoundrels with rapid dispatch, whether it meant running them out of town on a rail, or killing them.

Now, you may think that killing a government official for "doing his job" is a mite extreme, and on that point I would agree fully, extremity being the precise point because it should be clear to everyone by now that individuals in government will hang on to the power they have often even unto their own destruction at the hands of angry mobs.  Those mobs, ready and willing to relieve tyrants of their heads, constitute the ultimate instruments for maintaining the state of freedom for all.  Those who would violate your rights and, upon being informed of the violations,  who refuse to amend their ways have made unto their fellows through their refusals, a statement that is as clear and eloquent as any possible: "your rights are as nothing to me."  When that message comes through via actions, the free man is faced with the choice: heed the call to righteous action, or become a Weakman.  The Freeman is obliged by all that is right, decent, and reasonable to put unrepentant tyrants to their ends, up to and including killing them, for the violations of the rights of one's fellows, as well as oneself, must not be tolerated to any degree whatsoever.  The moment the first violation is allowed, the door to absolute tyranny has been opened, if only slightly ajar.  It makes no matter, for in time those who seek ever greater lordship over their fellows will endeavor to push the doors to absolute despotism ever wider such that one day all he needs do is waltz into the realm your rights as if he owns the place, which is exactly what has been done almost since the earliest days of the Republic.

I will go not further in my exposition as I believe the point has been made, at least for now.  To reject material non-equivocation in whatever form it may take including physical violence resulting the death of unrepentant tyrants is not virtue, but a grave flaw of character marking at best ignorance that cannot be forgiven, save that it be corrected and amended.  At worst, it represents cowardice of the most despicable order.

Those who wish to be free must perforce assume the duties, responsibilities, costs, obligations, and all the other burdens of maintenance.  As an old saw goes, "freedom isn't free."

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

Stupid v. Stoopid

Today, I would like to introduce a term I coined long years ago: "stoopid".

As you probably suspect, it is related to "stupid" through the term "stupidity", but before I get into the connection, let us define out terms.

Samuel Johnson's dictionary, 1841 edition defines "stupid":



STUPID  a. [stupide, Fr. stupidus, Lat.]
Dull ; wanting sensibility ; wanting apprehension ; heavy ; sluggish of understanding-. Milton. Per- formed without skill or genius. Swift:

Note that it is an adjective, which is to say it modifies a noun or a verb.  From Webster's of 1898:

STUPID a. 1. Very dull; insensible; senseless; wanting in understanding; heavy; sluggish; in a state of stupor;  - said of persons.
2. Resulting from, or evincing stupidity; formed without skill or genius; dull; heavy; - said of things.

Stupidity, a noun, is as follows, again from Websters:


STUPIDITY, n. 1. The quality or state of being stupid; extreme dullness of perception or understanding; sluggishness.
2 Stupor; astonishment; stupefaction.

What is "stupor":

1. Great diminution or suspension of sensibility ; suppression of sense or feeling lethargy.
2. Intellectual insensibility ; moral stupidity ; heedlessness or inattention to one's interests.

Note how "sense" is part of every definition.  From Webster's, the relevant passage:

SENSE n.  ... 4.  Sound perception and reasoning; correct judgment; good mental capacity; understanding; also, that which is sound, true, or reasonable; rational meaning.
"Good mental capacity."  There's the pay-dirt for our purposes here.

Therefore, "senseless" connotes an absence of good mental capacity, that this is the place where "stupid" and "stoopid" are distinguished from one another, through their linkage with "stupidity".

While stupid and stupidity are related, one cannot perforce infer "stupid" from "stupidity".  Many very intelligent, which is to say not-stupid, people have engaged in or subscribed to stupidity of one form or another.  We are prone to making such errors on occasion, even when we are very smart.  A stupid person, on the other hand, one who is un- or ill-equipped for intelligent living, cannot be held fully accountable for his acts of stupidity because he is, after all, unaware of it precisely because he lacks the capacity of understanding.  A man with no legs cannot be blamed for his inability to run a marathon.

"Stoopid", on the other hand is the term I have coined to denote the condition where someone willfully chooses stupidity, whereas the stupid man has no choice due to incapacity.  The man with brain lesions, microcephaly, or any of the other organically-based malformations of intellect for which there is no compensation to normal capacity, cannot help being what he is.  Therefore, we excuse his stupidity because he has no choice in the matter; he is simply and irreconcilably stupid.

But the man who is organically intact and possessing of nominal intellect, or better, yet chooses stupidity over intelligent reasoning and choice in his actions, cannot be so excused, for he has everything he needs to avoid the calamitous results of stupidity, yet embraces it nonetheless, often with the accompanying belief that he is, in fact, very clued-in and wise in both his knowledge, opinions, and the choices he makes pursuant to that which he thinks so highly in himself.  That is what defines the stoopid man, v. the stupid.

The world abounds with stoopid people, I am so very sad to report.  The degrees and sorts of stupidity that now pass as intelligence is almost not to be believed.  We could go chapter and verse for thousands of pages listing the mind-bending idiocies to which vast pluralities of humanity wed themselves and upon which they make their choices and undertake action.  There is no point in going through that list as I am sure nearly anyone reading these words will have lists of their own.  That is a discussion for other times.

The thin slice of good news there is that there exists at least a theoretical potential for bringing stoopid people back to sense.  If a man becomes willing to depart with his errant beliefs and deeds, then almost anything of good becomes possible.  Thank God that the stoopid people of the world have sufficient native intelligence to be able of making the choice to turn away from stupidity, an option unavailable to the truly stupid man.  The only question, then, becomes that of the will to lift oneself up and out of the pit that is the willingness to live in self-deceit.

I hold vanishing hope that people will adopt "stoopid" in their daily expressions when describing people who choose stupidity over intelligence, but shall nevertheless encourage everyone to do so.  Calling a man "stupid" puts him on the defensive, but if "stoopid" were to become well enough known and understood, referring to one as being "stoopid" would indicate that an otherwise intelligent man is choosing stupidity and that it may be corrected with some effort, large or small.

Stupid people are not a great problem for humanity as a whole, for they are few and far between.  Stoopid people, on the other hand, represent an enormous threat to humanity's survival, much less the status of men as free beings upon the earth.

So consider integrating this term into your well used vocabulary.  There is so much stupidity running amok in every corner of the planet, I daresay it could become one of your more often employed words.

Thanks once again, and as always, please accept my best wishes.