Secfree: A Biggest Lie

I have found it most curious to observe the nearly universal acceptance of one of the most poisonous of the tacit assumptions upon which humans operate.  It is that of the false dichotomy of security and freedom.  I will henceforth refer to this as the "Secfree" fallacy, an ultimate lie that says one must choose between freedom and security.  Secfree has enabled tyrants of every stripe to cow vast populations into accepting their caprice.  Continuing as standard practice even today, few if any of the other tools in the tyrant's bag of tricks can boast of what appears to be a nearly perfect record of success, playing on the mid-brain fear of the individual that if they do not waive just a "smidge" of their freedoms, the boogieman is going to get them and do terrible, unspeakable things.

Secfree may in fact be the ultimate zero-sum belief.

However, as with so many other fallacies and outright lies, once exposed to the withering light of anything better than the most carelessly casual examination, the true nature of Secfree comes into sharp focus.

One of the bases upon which Secfree's success is founded is the deeply tacit assumption that there exists such a thing as a guaranty of security.  As with so many other things in life, security is a purely statistical creature, which is to say that it is a game of numbers; of probabilities; likelihoods that some event will happen, or not.  Anyone coming to another with smiles, offered handshakes, and promises of safety is either dangerously ignorant of the fundamental nature of life, psychotic as a pineapple, or is selling a bill of goods.  Most often, my vote is for the latter.

Because of this nature, security can only be offered as a probability measure.  A great and all-powerful "state" can do nothing to protect you when a twenty-mile long asteroid is bearing down upon one's head at ten miles per second.  In such a circumstance, you and likely everyone you know is doomed.  The same is true of far more mundane threats such as the sick and desperate junkie who is going to have your wallet, no matter what.  Hellbent and deciding he will brook no resistance, such a man poses a threat against which no "state" or agent thereof may offer guaranty.

The old saw that says "feces happens" is perennially true.  Nobody is able to guarantee anyone security, and yet there are those who are always willing to make the promise in any case.  It should be borne in mind that regardless of the conscious reasons for making such promises, fair or foul, at the unconscious level there is always to be found the nut for he who does the promising: power over his fellows, willingly given.

Once the trick that is the exchange of freedom for a vaporous lie is discovered, recognized, accepted as real, and its nature understood, it quickly becomes clear that the one thing all Secfree peddlers seek, whether they are aware or will otherwise admit,  is the power that the exchange brings to their pockets.  It is human relations played as a strict zero-sum where "heads I win; tails you lose."

The other end of the exchange is easily understood for what it is: people want what they want, and are most often willing to sell their souls in order to have it no matter how absurd, self-defeating, and destructive the choice to procure may prove, even prima facie, often raining those results down upon those around them as well.  The average man, what we may call the "Meaner", is sufficiently corrupted with fear and avarice that he will readily find a way to rationalize the destruction of his fellows for the sake of getting what he wants, in this case his hallowed security.  The list of excuses people offer themselves to justify and excuse the ghastly things they allow to be done in their names is depressingly long, shameful, and utterly devoid of validity.   The Meaner will often go so far as to decide that those who suffered for his choices probably deserved it anyway.  Some humans.

Secfree results in the willful handing over of one's sacred birthright in exchange for the privilege of being able to lie to oneself that they are now safe.  It is perhaps the most hideous absurdity of them all, no different in effect to taking one's life-savings in cash and setting to it gasoline and a lit match.

The deep irony there is this: freedom is the condition of human existence that offers the best numbers in the game of chance that we call "security".  It may seem counter intuitive to a great many people, but once again the most meager effort to honestly dope out the logic chain demonstrates how it is true.  A single, simple example, should provide most with enough on which to go such that they are able to continue asking the right questions.

For the sake of "security", the Secfree peddlers constantly spew the bait that we must eliminate guns because no civil society needs or wants them, and that if you give up your firearms, you will become safe.  This, of course, is a bald-faced lie of pure brass.  History has proven without any wiggle room for argument that no matter how strictly anything may be prohibited, no matter how draconian the punishments for non-compliance, there will always be those who can and will violate the prohibition, sometimes with nefarious intent.  Subscribers to Secfree most often come to the defense of gun prohibition with the absurdly false argument that we don't need guns because police will see to our defense.  In ever increasing measure, it is police who pose the greatest and most ubiquitous threats to our safety.  Such irony.

Imagine the mugger, knife in hand, threatens your life if you do not give him the wallet.  Sure, you could hand it over and count on his promise that he won't kill the only witness to his high crime, but do you really want to place the trust of your life, your First Property, into the hands of one willing to rob you in this manner?  Will covertly dialing the police via E911 result in your deliverance from danger and back into the bosom of your beloved safety?  As an old saying goes, "when seconds count, the police are only minutes away."  On average, the best guarantor of one's safety is himself because third party defenders rarely appear out of thin-air and, when push comes to shove, may decide not to fight on your behalf because they, too, want to go home to their families at night.

Now consider the free society where men are at their leisure to arm themselves in anticipation of the unanticipated.  When the mugger announces himself, you are free to hand it over if that is what you wish, perhaps even trusting your assailant will leave you in peace in your belief that a wallet and its contents are not worth killing someone.  Or you may produce your weapon, leaving you the options of holding the criminal at bay either until police arrive, or you can affect your escape.  Finally, in the case where Mr. Mugger decides to go for broke, you have at least the outside chance of shooting him down pursuant to the preservation of the life to which you hold just and valid title.  It is clear that your menu of choice is far and away better when you are free, versus being subjugated under the rubric of Secfree.

Freedom provides a far greater options to everyone, with the recognition that in life nothing is guaranteed, most especially safety from harm.  But reasonable assurances can be validly made in that respect, once again with freedom providing the greatest allowances for choice such that each individual may provide for himself as his abilities and valid means may enable him, and his predilections enjoin.  One man chooses the gun, while another may decide upon a bodyguard, while others are free to remain content to ignore such issues altogether, confident that no evil shall ever befall them.

Freedom is not the mutually exclusive antagonist of security: it is security's greatest hope for realization.

It is my hope that people will consider what I have written here with an open mind, suspending both disbelief and hard feelings, as well as any apprehensions they may experience at the thought of being responsible for their own safety and security in what I believe we can all agree is a world where "authorities" are powerless to render aid to those in need.  Do yourselves a great favor and take the plunge in a place of comfort such that you feel able to venture beyond your deeply held assumptions about such matters, and take a walk on the wild side.

My promise to you is that you can only benefit from this, regardless of outcome.  And if perchance you feel the uncomfortable tingling that new truths often bring to the fringes of one's awareness, be brave and press onward, and deeply into it.  Explore it as fully as you are able, no matter how scary or otherwise objectionable you may find it because I further promise that if you do this, you may come to a life altering moment because the more deeply and stridently one feels that objection, the more likely it becomes that the truth engendered there is important, the change to which most often results in healthy transformation.  Always consider the possibility that in the end you may become a better and greater human being for it.  At worst, you have confirmed your presently held beliefs and may at least then speak on such matters with better authority.

As always, please accept my best wishes.

Some New Rules For Police

Given how police tend to run amok, always dangerously and often murderously, it is clear that we the people, those to whom all cops swear an oath of fealty and faithful service, are obliged to set the conditions under which police may act, including the metes and bounds of such action, as well as the penalties they shall face in cases where they violate their oaths.

The new rules:

1. If a death occurs at police hands, all cops with immediate involvement are instantly put on unpaid leave for not less than one year, no exceptions.  Any cop found to have been unjustifiably culpable for an on-duty death, his career is terminated as of the date of the injury event that lead to it.  Beyond any criminal penalties that may be incurred, in addition the terminated cop may never again become a sworn agent for any establishment, state or federal.  Furthermore, he is barred from holding any other government position, whether elected, appointed,  hired, or contracted.  These banishments are to stand for the remainder of the debarred party's life.

2. Any act of violence in which a cop has involvement, directly or otherwise, automatically places him off duty without pay until an investigation is conducted and concludes that he acted within acceptable limits.  All such investigations are to be conducted by independent third parties; police are never to be allowed to investigate themselves.

3. Upon the occurrence of violent action, the officer in question is to be placed into an isolation cell and held without communication until the investigative body is convened and is ready to hear testimony. No lawyers are allowed to represent the officer.  An isolated officer is to have no access to any material objects whatsoever, except food and water.  They are debarred access to writing paraphernalia, electronic or otherwise.  All officers within 500 feet proximity to the officer in question are to have their video recorders turned on.  If the have no such device, they are to leave the scene immediately and report to their headquarters.  Failure in either case shall place the officers so failing on immediate termination with loss of all benefits and retirement, and they shall become lifetime-ineligible for any job with any government agency as per section one.  They shall furthermore face criminal charges by special prosecutor with a minimum sentence of one year in state prison, general population, and up to three years.

4. All evidence of police action is to be presented to a grand jury. No police involvement beyond testimony is to be allowed, nor are any attorneys from any agency, public or private, to be admitted to such proceedings except as observers.

5. Any invocation of the Fifth Amendment by an officer under such investigation results in automatic dismissal of the officer and life-long banishments. per section one The investigative panel is restricted in its questioning to relevant queries only. Any off-topic questions shall place the questioner in peril of felony charges for which the minimum sentence shall be one year in state prison, general population.

6. Any police convicted of committing murder while on duty shall be automatically sentenced to death, sentence to be carried out within 4 hours of the failure of the final appeal. In any case where sentence is overturned, sentence shall be commuted to life in prison without possibility of parole, in general population. No exceptions.

7. Every police department shall have in place an Oversight Board comprised of non-police members. Board members will tenure for two years with no salary and may have no connection to police, whether through family, business, or any other avenue.  Upon the good conclusion of the term of service, the member will be ineligible to serve again for 5 years. Members shall serve only upon sworn oath of duty and a surety bond, to be held in trust by a reliable third party that is not a governmental agency.  Members shall have full access to any and all police documents, communiqués, and all other information related to operations, occurrences, officer data, policies, and so forth.

8. Any behavior by Board members in violation of their sworn oaths of duty shall be investigated by an external agency. In addition, a citizens' petition for such an investigation, having either at least fifty signatures or a number representing 10% or more of the community's population, whichever is smaller, shall bring such investigations to bear.  There shall be no governmental power to stop or otherwise thwart or interfere with such an investigation. Any attempts to interfere with such an investigation by any government official, whether elected, appointed, employed, assigned, or otherwise demonstrated by preponderance of evidence as being an agent of said government, shall themselves face felony charges, the conviction pursuant to which shall result in not less than five years at hard labor per count.

9. Any willful failure by a Board member to cooperate in such investigations shall result in immediate dismissal from the Board and the ineligibility to serve again for the remainder of the dismissed party's life on any such Board and shall be subject to the banishments of section one.  Barring extraordinary extenuating circumstances, such failures shall be taken as a prima facie admission of having committed a felony in violation of sworn oath, and shall result in not less than one year in prison per count, general population.

10. The results of investigations of board members may result in criminal charges being brought in the case where criminal action has been established. Such charges are to be handed to a special prosecutor. Local prosecutors shall be prohibited from pursuing such matters. In the event of a special prosecutor's failure to fulfill his duty to pursue criminal charges in a proper and timely manner, his duties shall be stripped and bestowed upon another. A citizen's petition of 200 signatures or 20% of the community population, whichever is smaller, demanding the dismissal of the special prosecutor for cause, where such relates to prosecutorial misconduct of any sort, including but not limited to vigor, shall be granted upon establishment with a new prosecutor assigned to the task.  The outgoing prosecutor shall be subject to investigation by both public and private parties with full exposure for any and all torts, equity failures, and criminal liabilities attaching to the failure of duty.  All relevant materials and information relating to the investigations for which the defrocked special prosecutor was liable are to be made available to all investigators, failure to do so constituting for any reason whatsoever to constitute a class-A felony for which each count of conviction shall bring not less than ten (10) years at hard labor or solitary confinement.

11. The purpose of the oversight Board shall be to scrutinize and investigate all police operations, as well as department policy and personnel performance from chief downward. Department policy shall become effective only upon the approval of the Board, said Board being fully, utterly, and personally accountable to the members of the community they represent. The Board shall have the authority to investigate any and all police activities including documentation such as internal reports. They shall have supervised access to all evidence relating to criminal investigations, open or closed. Any conflicts of interest between a Board member and an open police investigation shall disqualify that Board member from investigations of police conduct.

12. The Board shall have the authority to dismiss any member of the police department for cause, pursuant to and in accord with standard guidelines. The officers in question shall have no recourse, but a citizen's petition of 100 signatures or 34% of a community's population, whichever is larger, calling for further examination of the Board's dismissal shall be granted and the decision reconsidered for possible errors in judgment, evidence, etc.

13.  The destruction of any evidence relating to a police-involved incident, regardless of nature of said incident or whether said evidence is damning or exculpatory, shall constitute a class-A felony breach of the Public Trust, shall result in mandatory charges, and shall be punished with not less than five years imprisonment per count, general population.

14.  Any and all convictions resulting from breaches of the Public Trust by any government official, employee, or contractor, will result in the disparagement of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for not less than five years after lapse of sentence, no exceptions.

This is how we begin to regain control over police who, at this time, have control over us. Righteous men who choose this profession should have no problem with any of this. The rest... they are most welcome to pursue employment better suited to their characters, such as pushing a broom or scraping road kill off the county byways.

If there is any place where "zero tolerance" may be said to make the least sense, this would be it.

As always, please accept my best wishes.

The Right To Secede

In recent years, many who ID as "liberty lovers" have been making much speak of the idea of secession.  The notion, while in itself valid, has to my knowledge not been discussed as to the particulars insofar as what it means in practice.  What does it mean to "secede"?  As always, the dictionary should be our first friend in establishing the semantic baseline from which we shall operate.

Worcester's Dictionary of 1840:

SECEDE: n. To withdraw from union of fellowship in society, or in any matter or business; to separate oneself; to retire.

Webster's of 1828:

SECE'DE, verb intransitive [L. secedo; se, from, and cedo, to move. Se is an inseparable preposition or prefix in Latin, but denoting departure or separation.]

To withdraw from fellowship, communion or association; to separate ones's self; as, certain ministers seceded from the church of Scotland about the year 1733.

Oxford Etymological Dictionary:

secede (v.)
1702, "to leave one's companions," from Latin secedere "go away, withdraw, separate; rebel, revolt," from se- "apart" + cedere "to go"). Sense of "to withdraw from a political or religious alliance of union" is recorded from 1755, originally especially in reference to the Church of Scotland. Related: Seceded; seceding; seceder.

Withdrawal is the essences of secession.  The freedom to withdraw remains a central and basic human right; it is one of the marks of a Freeman.  This speaks to the right to freedom of association, as recognized, honored, and protected by the First Amendment of the American Constitution.

As Freemen, we are each entitled to reserve our individual right to associate as we see fit.  We are free to withdraw from society as we may choose, for whatever reason whatsoever, or for no reason at all.  No man, regardless of his claim of purport, holds the authority to force upon another associations against the other's will.

Secession is not only the right of a population, though it is that also; it is most truly the right of the individual to associate as he will, which implies association in all its forms.  This includes his choice to secede from government and its interferences in his life, regardless of the manner, degree, or justifications given them.

Those who presume to lord over the rest have nothing valid upon which to hang their assertions in the matter of their claims to authority, regardless of the premise, which perforce is always false precisely because such claims are always lies.  The bottom line is this: no man holds authority over another.  Unless the other has committed a bona fide crime, which excludes all the synthetic crimes dreamt up from the thin air by men on the basis of their corrupted beliefs and interests, one has no right to interfere in the choices of another.  Authority, as commonly exercised by "government", is nothing better than the threat of the sword against all who fail to comply with the will of human caprice masquerading as valid command.

Bottom line: the right to secede is an inherent, individual right and not one of an exclusively collective nature.  Indeed, the collective right only exists to the extent of that of each individual in the group in question.  As we all know, or ought to know, rights are not additive.  In a group of three individuals, the concurring opinions of two in accord with their rights to choose and act do not dominate to countervail the right of the third to choose for himself on the issue in question.

It is my hope that people will come to the better understanding of secession, embrace it, and work toward making it the rule, rather than the high-risk exception it is today.

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

Time Is Here

Time is here.


It always has been, and it always shall be.


The nexus is now.


The nexus, that fork in the road where one chooses the kind of a human being to be, is in every man's face every moment of every day. You, for example, will help choose what sort of world in which your great grandchildren shall live. You will choose, whether in the actively participatory manner of the righteous and brave Freeman, or through the limp and lame default of a Weakman's evasion. But make no mistake about it, you will choose, for there is no escaping the responsibility; there is only cheap and cowardly avoidance, which buys one nothing at all.

In spite of the ubiquitous belief that one man can do nothing to alter the future, it is precisely the opposite that is true: the world improves or deteriorates, one man at a time.

Thus far, we the people have fallen down terribly, failing to do what needs doing in order to secure our freedoms, our prosperity, our happiness, and every other good that derives therefrom.

Today we have the power of the network on our side, yet we seem to do so little of value with it.

Think about that awhile - we have more at hand than ever before, yet we fail ourselves more resolutely than ever. Previous generations might be forgiven their failings for want of information. Today, we drown in it and can therefore offer no valid reason, much less an excuse, for our idle acceptance of the outrages heaped upon us by other human beings who hold no authority to do so beyond the which we, the others, allow. And this is truer of Americans than of any other people on the earth.

The coming debridement of all pretty and deceptive varnishes previously slathered upon our statuses as serfs and perhaps as even slaves can be credited not to the tyrants, but fully and solely to ourselves, for we routinely and universally fail to take the measures necessary to throw the vampires from our necks.

Our posterity will one day curse our corruption, as perhaps even we shall ourselves.

A deep reexamination of who we are, what we believe in common, and what we are willing to do pursuant to those beliefs is long past due, as are the changes needed in our thoughts if we are tos be erious about being Freemen in preference to being Weakmen. And if we are not serious, as judged by our action rather than words, then I submit that it is high time we dispense with all the talk of it, for we succeed in naught but the making of ourselves into cheap, clown-like caricatures for whom we may validly hold no esteem beyond doleful and abiding embarrassment, shame, and bottomless, sorrow-heavy regret. Let us at least be honest about ourselves, if we will be nothing better than cowards and scoundrels unto ourselves.

If the boredom of the lie that is "security" is preferable to Sam Adams' "animating contest" of freedom, then let us admit it, the sad irony there being that the greatest assurance of security lies precisely in the contest, and not the lie. But nobody can choose for you, so I will advise utmost caution in how you decide to answer the call of your most basic nature as a free-born being.

The Freeman can always choose to become a slave. The slave, however, can rarely choose to be free.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

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.

The Chain Of Obedience

This is a video installation, well worth the two and a half minutes watch.

Cheers.

The Truth About Human Rights

In a previous essay, I addressed the question "what are rights?", describing what they are, precisely.  What I failed to do in that work, was reveal a deeper truth about them, an error I shall correct presently.

People yak a blue streak about "rights".  Forgetting the nonsensical ravings of the misguided who go on about "gay" rights, "women's" rights, and so forth, the only rights of which to speak in the realm of men are human rights.  There are no special rights for these guys, those gals, or the creatures lurking over in the dark corners.  We all share the same rights.

There is, however, a deeper truth to the story of rights, one that is rarely, if ever, discussed.  It is that short, but important story, to which I now turn our attention.

As previously discussed in the above reference essay, a right is a claim.  To wit, the definition from Worcester's dictionary of 1840 states a claim to be:

CLAIM, v. 1. To ask as a right ; to demand as due; to request authoritatively; to require;
CLAIM, v. To become entitled to a thing; to derive a right.
CLAIM, n. 1. A demand as of right; a challenge of ownership; 

 Note that a claim always refers to some property and, in the relevant sense, a demand.  Therefore, your right to life is your claim to your own life, which in turn is the demand and notice you assert and serve to the world that said life is your property, or what I like to call one's "First Property", or "FP" for short.

The deeper truth about rights, to which little or nothing has been written of which I am aware, is that in order for a right to actually exist, it must be asserted.  That is, the claim must be explicitly staked, the demand to property due made clearly, or it does not exist.  Courts and other institutions of Law may rule for the sake of practicality that a right may be inferred through certain assumptions for particular cases, and they would perhaps be correct in doing so.  After all, it would likely be a terrible waste of energy to feel that one must assert his claim to life anew with every person he passed on the street, for fear of some stranger's attempt to take him as a slave or even to slay him for want of having stated his claim to First Property in advance.  The world would become a very much more complicated place to navigate than it is already.

But are all claims to be assumed?  Clearly not.  If a man finds a gold coin on the roadway, is be obliged to leave it where is rests on the assumption that its rightful owner retains claim to it?  No.  The coin may be reasonably regarded as lost and without owner.  Furthermore, the discoverer of the coin is under no demonstrable moral obligation to seek out the most recent owner for the sake of restoring his property.

What if the same man discovers a car in a ditch, keys therein?  May he, after perhaps some "reasonable" amount of time waiting there, get in and drive away?  Practically speaking, no.  Why?  Because the property is by the means of a state motor vehicle institution, registered as belonging to someone in specific, the apparent abandonment of it not perforce giving license to a passer-by to claim it as his own.  There is a demonstrable link of claim between the property and the registered owner.

As we see, these things can become a mite complicated in some respects, yet for the most part people appear to manage well enough.

That all said, it remains that a claim must be asserted in order to become valid.  Some will say that the mere happenstance of birth establishes the individual claim to First Property, and I can accept that as an eminently obvious and practical view to take on the matter.  And yet, that claim may in cases have to be reasserted under certain circumstances.

For example, imagine you are accosted by a police officer who demands you produce ID because he "needs" to know who you are.  In such a case, faced with a man with a gun, the class of such men having statistically proven themselves ready and willing to use those guns in the event you fail to comply with their invalid orders, you have a choice to make.  You can meekly accede to his invalid demand, or you can remind him of your countervailing right not to be molested by strangers, regardless of the presence of a sidearm and a meaningless badge, connoting no actual authority whatsoever.  Often times, when capably challenged, a cop will back down precisely because he knows he doesn't have Law on his side.

So then, the reality of rights is this: they must be asserted explicitly in some manner and they must always be defended.  A right is not a guarantee to the property it claims.  Just because I assert my right to my First Property, which is to say my life,  it does not follow that I am guaranteed that life from being taken from me.  I must take steps to best ensure that my life will remain intact and my own throughout my time on this earth.  My claim may be effectively voided through events beyond my control, such as a building collapsing upon me, or it might be destroyed through the criminal action of another human being.  Finally, my life could be expropriated as the ill-gotten property of other human beings.

Tax laws, for example, reduce every tax-paying human being to the status of a serf because there is now some proportion of his time spent at his labor, the fruits of which are taken from him without consent, by another.  That is, at best, serfdom, but more likely the better label is "slavery", bearing in mind that one need not have manacles of iron about his ankles in order to be a slave.  The threat of physical violence to coerce compliance is sufficient when compliance is the result.  Such people are slaves no less than those with said manacles.  They are, in fact, more so slaves because they remain compliant in the absence of immediate physical restraint and compulsion.  That tells us that they are men defeated in their minds and spirits, unwilling to walk off the plantation for fear of the master's retributions.  It is one of the most wretched states in which any man can find himself.

The "state", or "government" if you prefer, routinely acts to violate your rights.  It is done every day, all day long.  In New York City and under the colored authority of the so-called Sullivan "law" (which is no Law at all), anyone choosing to walk down Broadway at noon with his sidearm openly displayed on his hip will be arrested and charged with illegal possession of a firearm, that is, if the cops do not simply dispense with those formalities and start shooting right off the bat.  The "state" is fact in the sense that people believe it is actually there and behave accordingly.  Those who comprise the "state" will violate your rights without compunction, which is why onus rests with you to defend those rights against trespass.  Normatively speaking, this should never be the case, but in the real world, it is almost always the case where the "state" makes contact with you, the sovereign man.  The only hope you have of escaping an encounter without some damage is to assert your rights and stand fast no matter what the goons may throw at  you.

Remember that even though agents of "government" may know they are doing wrong, that will not stop them from trying.  Intimidation and deceit have been primary tools of tyrants for thousands of years because they tend to work, and they work because the people against whom those tools are turned most often cower in fear when they ought to be standing tall, come what may.  This is a primary reason the world has been what it has, politically speaking: people willing to tolerate the intolerable.  That is where the vigorous defense of one's rights through proper and effective assertion comes in, along with the attitude of absolute intolerance of that which must never be tolerated.

Therefore, learn your rights and how to defend them from the caprice and violence of the "state" and its goons with badges and other symbols of false authority.  Adopt an attitude of intolerance, backed by one of an absolute determination to make those goons back the hell off as you unleash upon them volley after volley of ironclad assertions of your rights such that they have no choice but to abandon their perfidious behavior.  Be aware that it may not always work.  Goons are well known for murdering people for having had the temerity and brass to question their authority.  That is a risk only you can weigh as to whether it is worth assuming.  But consider the wretched state to which you reduce yourself every time you back down from their criminal trespasses upon your rightful claims.  What price, your self-respect?  Only you can answer that, but I will advise great care and deliberation when deciding the question, because crawling from the pit of despair is far more difficult than remaining out of it in the first place.

Attitude is nearly everything in life.  To quote Charles Swindoll:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

Take that one to the bank and invest in it.  I promise you before God that the dividends it pays are well worth the efforts of investment.

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

Proportionality

Purloined Chewing Gum


Fred chews gum. In fact, he loves to chew it and does so every day. He treasures his chewing gum.

One morning, John takes a stick of Fred's gum without permission. John and Fred are not well acquainted. Fred takes serious exception to John's violation of his property rights. Fred beats John soundly and with some severity, perhaps even killing John.

Is Fred justified in his response to John's action? The answer is, "it depends". It depends on the basic assumptions under which one labors when considering such questions.

Many people, perhaps very much most, would raise the idea of "proportionality". For a vast majority, beating someone for having taken a stick of gum without having first asked is not justified, much less killing for said cause. It is largely deemed "irrational". But is it? Let us take a somewhat deeper look.

What, exactly, defines "proportionality"?

Who gets to determine the standard that defines proportionality in an objective, objectively valid, and universally applicable way? Whence their authority to determine it for all men and foist it upon them? These are not rhetorical questions, nor are they in any way trivial or invalid. Not only are those questions central to the validity of the concept of proportionality, upon close examination one will find that they have no satisfactory answers.

Similarly, by what authority does one man get to judge the perceptions of another and deem them inadequate or even criminal and worthy of... what, exactly? Punishment? Imposition of judgment upon them? The taking of his property in some presumed act of equity and justice?

What is the objective standard by which all this presumably well-intended busy-bodying is justified?

The answer is: there is none. The concept of proportionality from the standpoint of objective validity is hopelessly unanswerable precisely because an objective and practicable definition is not possible.

What, then, is the valid basis of action where defense of property rights is concerned?

The ONLY salient fact where acts of defense are concerned is the fact that one human being has violated another; an act to which the former cannot validly claim as justly perpetrated against the latter.

Any purported absence of proportionality, even presuming that the notion has even the least shred of credibility, is at best a distant secondary consideration.

If A violates B, regardless of manner or degree, it is clear that B is within his rights to take action against A. Through the very act of violation, A places himself at risk, regardless of awareness or intent. In pure principle, in violating B, A has risked forfeiture of all he possesses, including his First Property (life).

In reality, people do not react with great extremity, save very rarely. Therefore, the "problem" really isn't. Thoughts to proportionality are of no practical importance in most situations. But if this is so, where rests the delineation between this and the cases where proportionality is justly mandated?

The notion of proportionality, once accepted as valid, establishes a slippery slope. By small increments does that slope find itself becoming steeper and more generously slathered with ever better lubricant. This is what human beings do, our histories overwhelmingly lousy with examples. How does one think we humans have gone from our ancient anarchist roots, to our currently deplorable state of government-imposed, arbitrary, and capricious restriction upon our rightful prerogatives to act? It did not happen over night, but rather by small incremental, creeping motions away from freedom, toward restriction in usurpation of the rightful claims of every man to act.

Consider further the more extreme case where one's life is placed in immediate danger of destruction at the hands of another. How easy it is in the comfortable, time-flush, and safety-rich environment of a prosecutor's office chair to judge the "proportionality" of another man's acts of self-defense, enjoying the advantages that were unavailable to those forced into make what were likely a split-second decisions, their very lives riding on next choices?

Every day there is some chiseler in a cheap suit presuming to stand in judgment of the "proportionality" of another's actions, absent an objectively measured standard not only by which to judge the validity of another man's acts, but to justify it before the public. Given this, ought the concept of proportionality not come under strict scrutiny?

The foremost and perhaps only consideration in cases of a man acting in defense of his rightful property is the initial violation perpetrated against him by another. No man holds the least authority to violate the rights of another, no matter the degree, absent violation by that other. The concept of proportionality, imposed upon others under color of just authority, introduces the notion of degree in such a manner that potentially erases all authority of the individual to act within the metes and bounds of his inborn, autonomous right. The very definition of "proportionality" may be altered in whatever manner and degree deemed desirable or "necessary" by those who presume to lord over the rest, whether it be kings, legislatures, or what have you.

History readily demonstrates that such standards tend to be arbitrary in the best cases, and intentionally, viciously malevolent in the worse. The false onus of proportionality places our very lives in jeopardy through invalid obligations that leave men without the freedom to act spontaneously and with the knowledge that they will safe from the capricious responses of his fellows under false authority. In dire situations, such reservations and the hesitations that arise therefrom can cost a men their lives. Is it not bad enough that a man is forced to act in defense of his very life? Is there any just cause to further burden him with having to worry whether his choice of response to a threat to life and limb will earn him a prison term and possibly the financial destitution of those whom he loves?

This imposition of the false standard of proportionality constitutes a gross and criminal violation of the rights of all men. It is, in fact, a deep, gross, and insidious violation of the much touted NAP†, wrapped in a false narrative of just limitation of the rightful prerogatives of free men pursuant to "justice". It would be laughable, were it not for the destruction heaped upon righteous men for their purported failures to respond "proportionally" to crimes acknowledged to have been committed against them.

Furthermore, even for "lesser" violations of one man by another, the ultimate right of destruction of the violator remains a valid claim for those violated. Consider unamended violations, where the violator refuses or otherwise fails to make amends for his crime, regardless of how trivial someone might regard it. If the violator is allowed to escape without consequence, then the rights of all men have been ceded in principle. If one may get away with X, then what in principle invalidates his claim to the right to commit Y without consequence? Upon what basis do we justify the effective allowance of one violation while denying another?

John steals a piece of Fred's chewing gum and the latter decides to take great exception to the act for reasons his own. Fred demands John make him whole, but John steadfastly refuses. Is Fred ultimately entitled to John's life? I say he is, for if he is not, then an arbitrary line has been drawn between "yea" and "nay", the position of which is equally arbitrary. Once that has been established as an accepted (by whom???) precedent, ANYTHING is possible in terms of moving that line such that a man can be required to hand his very life over to another on demand, as is the case in principle in the UK where any morally valid act of self defense is likely to earn the defender a stint in prison pursuant to the arbitrary and grossly unjust "laws" of that land.

The concept of proportionality looks good on cheap paper, written in large scrawl with crayons of bright and pretty colors. However, once one breaks out the scalpels in scrutiny of the idea, problems begin to show, as we see.

Proportionality is an emotion-driven fallacy that provides tyrants a toehold by which their usurpations are falsely, yet compellingly, justified and by which the lives of men thereby stand perpetually in ruin's shadow.

Therefore, it is my gentle and respectful recommendation that you give these ideas their due consideration with the requisite diligence and open mind. If you ever find yourself discharging the duties of a juror, reject all assertions of proportionality as a justification of prosecution, for it is a false basis.

As always, please accept my best wishes.

Warrior Philosophers

Greetings once again, my fellow spirits.

I saw a post on a social media's site just a moment ago that cited a quote from Thucydides that goes thusly:

"The society that separats its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."


The propriety of it prompted the following response.

It is agreeable. The classic notion of the warrior philosopher denotes the ultimate warrior. Why? Because the intimation that he is a philosopher implies he thinks for himself and in the cultural context in which I assume it was made, I must further assume it also carried the implication of being a moral and courageous man. Those are the men we need in uniform, so to speak; men who will say "no!" to orders immoral.  We need as many of these as possible, the ideal proportion being 100%.

Police, for example, are not such men. They almost universally obey blindly.  On the few occasions we read about a cop bucking the status quo, bad things happen thereafter to he who showed such temerity.  The "system" does not tolerate those who rock the boat.  It has a long memory, and is not at all forgiving.

If somewhere a charismatic "leader" rose, and in the wake of his hand-waving tirades a fever spiked in his subjects such that all people of X-persuasion were to be separated and somehow made eighth-class properties of the "crown", you had better bet that there would be someone enforcing the edict with single-minded and likely vicious devotion, police being the candidates topping the list.  Barring them, there are always others willing to answer the call.

It doesn't matter who the target group might be - perhaps we could return to old reliables such as blacks and Jews. More likely these days, it would be white males. Someone, I guaRONtee, would blindly accede to whatever orders were issued. Round `em up! And if the orders ultimately crowned in "kill them all", there would always be those willing to press that gore-laden labor. History has demonstrated the willingness of men to engage in acts of mass murder, given the right incentive.

This is not likely possible with a body of warrior philosophers because they would not only understand the gross impropriety of such orders - the very criminality - but would have the courage and motivation to refuse them and, if necessary, air out and neutralize the sources.

That is what humanity needs. We don't need charismatic "leaders". We don't need leaders at all, save that every man be the leader of his own life. We need men courageous and loving enough of themselves and their fellows to do the occasionally ugly work required to maintain the state of freedom not only for themselves, but for all men.

Rottenness is a fact of humanity. There will always will be men who fail to abide by the principles of Proper Human Relations, whatever the reasons. Such men need to be excised from the company of their fellows, whether by killing them or through exile and forced containment, if the freedom of men is to be protected in perpetuity. It is ugly work - no decent man wants to do such things to another. He takes no whit of pleasure in it, yet may still derive an appropriate sense of satisfaction in having justly and with correct basis protected the fundamental rights of all men, for in neutralizing one transgressor's acts of trespass, he saves all others, for the doom of the humanity begins with the first failure to protect. This is part of the price of being a Freeman.

Observe how we fully as have failed at this, allowing vicious tyrants of all stripe to commit their atrocities without sufficient answer. Because we are moral cowards, unwilling to engage in the repugnant business of maintaining the proper order between all men, which is to say the state of mutually respectful freedom, insanity and tragedy ride roughshod across the face of the globe, the conditions they set having become the rule rather than the exception.

We shrink from enlightened self-interest because of our natural distaste for that which is clearly distasteful.  Such disinclination says good things of us, but our failure to command over it where necessary indicts us with far greater rebuke.  There are those times where the repellent act proves necessary if we are to preserve our birthright freedoms and not devolve into the chaos we now find in nearly every corner, nook, and cranny of the world.

You have failed and I, shamefully, have done no better.

Courage is not enough. Intellect fit for the task of being a Freeman, a protector and guardian of all humanity from the predations of transgressors upon the common rights of all people, is an absolute necessity, as well as the smarts that come with training.  Absent the right knowledge, how can any man know what to do in a given situation? Without knowledge, children drink poison in their innocence and good men allow themselves and others to be abused and ruined by thoses who may do so with intentions fair or foul.

Freedom proper, equal, and respectful to, and of all men, demands everything of the individual. It is hard work that requires devotion, charity, love, trust, vigilance, grace, and courage. It demands all that men can give, and then a smidge more. That is why we run from it; it is simply too much work for the Meaner - the average man - who rathers the false convenience, economy, and comfort of idle entropy, usually in the form of going along to get along.  Sadder still, we pick and choose the elements of our individual visions of "freedom", that which I call "Pretty Slavery", and stencil "freedom" upon its forehead.  

Look what it has gotten us. We live in Hell, the gut-wrenching tragedy of it being not only that none of it is necessary, but trebly so, given the grace and love and beauty of spirit of which we are capable and so often demonstrate in other ways. Choosing horror over love for no other reason than we are too lazy or fearful to lift a finger to choose otherwise reveals our most terrible flaws.

I do not know the proper solution for all this, the measures that might serve to correct our doleful state, but the cultivation Warrior Philosophers must, in my opinion, be part of it.  It is not clear that such an endeavor may be realized in any manner beyond the theoretical in numbers sufficient to address this deep breech of nature.

In principle, the path forward is clear and simple.  In practice, it is the same, and yet statistical reality of mens' minds nevertheless reveals the low likelihood of such solutions' potentials for successful attainment.  Our minds build our reality and we appear bent on clinging to the evils which, having become so familiar to us, have become comfortable regardless of the horrors they bring.

Please forgive the dark mood of the subject, but I believe it needs to be aired in the slim hope that it will set people to thinking.

Thank you for your time and attention, and as always please accept my best wishes.

The General Strategy Of Globalists For Gaining Dominion

People ask why certain phenomena, usually social and political, are now being observed. Take for example the apparently eroding state of relations between the sexes: men and women. There are a number of results that are precipitating in the wake of so-called "third- (or even fourth-) wave feminism", none of them anything a rational, learned, and honest individual would label as "good". Consider the so-called "MGTOW" (Men Going Their Own Way) movement, which has been growing in numbers and, apparently, determination, over the past several years with no signs of leveling off any time soon. An increasing number of men have become fed up with the strident and often dangerous nonsense of "feminism", choosing to avoid the traditional avenues of relations between men and women such as marriage, opting instead for single life such that they not become the victims of the profoundly unfeminine (i.e., greatly masculinized) females, the attitudes of which bring absolutely nothing attractive to the table of male-female relations.

Even in the workplace, men are now backing strongly away from women because of all the perilous nonsense with which so many females now threaten, including but not limited to false accusations of sexual harassment that most often ends badly for the accused; often without the courtesy of due process.

Such divisions do not limit to relations between men and women. Strife between differing groups such as religious persuasions and virtually any other popular subdivision you might care to name is now not only as common as dirt, but punctuated with a bitter stridency across nearly every such partition to a degree that may well be unprecedented, the scale being truly global.

We now return to the initial question: why is this happening in an era of such technological advancement where, supposedly, human understanding of so many things is claimed to have reached new and heady heights? How is it that despite all our advancements, rather than coming together in relations that should seemingly be more cordial than ever, humans are at each others' throats more widely and bitterly?

The reason is crystal clear: the objective is the destruction of the naturally extant relational cohesion between individuals. This can be readily observed on virtually any front you care to consider: relations between the two sexes, so-called "races", religions, ethnicities, orientations of philosophy, politics, sexuality, and so on down a very long list of the ways in which people might be seen as differing from one another.

Amid the shrieks and gnashing of teeth by those who ID as "left/progressive" for forced "tolerance" and "diversity", the theoretical result being a loving, tolerant, and diverse world of human relations, one runs face-first into the practical results to which all this wild tantrum-pitching points: a world of hateful, resentment-filled, deeply intolerant monoculture. In such a world the consequences for not cheering the politically correct bandwagon with sufficient enthusiasm stand to be grim. Do not even think of what will happen to you were you to be so foolish as to even appear to dissent in such a world, for to wander even near those high walls surrounding the plantation would carry great risk because such appearances would run headlong into what would doubtlessly be a zero-tolerance policy for "thought crime".

The goal of this dismantling of the cohesive bonds that have united people through nature for millennia is to weaken the en-bloc power of populations, ranging from pairs of friends and couples, to major popular subdivisions and entire national populations.

You are bearing first-hand witness to globalist activity pursuant to the establishment of Theire so-called "one world" hegemony through the agency of weakening what I call "super-organisms", the wholes of which are effectively far greater than the mere sums of the parts (individual human beings). Superorganization is one of the cornerstones of human power with direct implications for those who would reign over their fellows, as well as those who would remain as Freemen.
We are being effectively subjugated through the elimination of the power that the cohesion of VOLUNTARY agreement between individuals brings to entire populations. The simple and age-old trick of "divide and conquer", augmented with our contemporary information technologies, is working like a charm, right out in the blatant open under the noses of virtually every man, woman, and child on the planet. Its intent is to weaken you by eliminating the power your relations lend you as an individual and effectively as a group of family, friends, and willfully cooperating associates.

Further to the goal of undermining individual power is the imposition of forced cooperation between individuals who would likely otherwise choose not associate with one another. Such arrangements maintain tensions between individuals, which prevents them from coming together in natural cooperation, leading thereby to more powerful social structures in the form of friendships and group efforts toward commonly agreed goals and objectives. This is precisely what Theye do not want happening, for no matter how reduced a generation of men may become in terms of intellect and smarts, the risk always remains that someone will "twig" to an idea that stands as anathema to the desires of those in power, and that can never be tolerated by tyrants.
Therefore, the reduction of general knowledge is insufficient to the maintenance and further cultivation of ever broader and deeper political power. The bonds that naturally arise between people when they come together through individual accord carry with them an inherent threat to the standing power. Such bonds must, therefore, be eliminated and prevented from reestablishment. The way to do this is to bring people into an environment of perpetual, low-intensity warfare with each other, where nobody trusts others sufficiently to allow such bonds to form. This is why we see groups of people who are fundamentally incompatible with each other, whether ethnically, morally, philosophically, or however you care to consider, FORCED into proximity with each other, all in the name of much vaunted "diversity".  
Some would attempt to countervail the implications of this by asserting that those groups would eventually get over their initial discomfort with each other because such tensions cannot possibly endure for very long. Yet, our history readily demonstrates just how false this assertion truly is. Mutual group hatreds of the most stridently bitter timbre have endured for centuries and even millennia.

A good example of such violent disagreement between groups can be found in the Balkans, where Croats and Serbs have despised one another for centuries, requiring precisely zero outside interference to keep the fires of hatred well stoked to the extent that they have remained in states of material warfare with each other during the entire period, save the handful of decades in which the iron hand of Tito kept them at bay during Yugoslavia's brief tenure as a barbaric totalitarian nation-state. Tito's body was not yet cold before Serbs and Croats were back at the old hatreds, murdering each other by the tens of thousands.

Consider the animus between Christians and Jews which held for nearly two thousand years as the Roman Church egged the faithful on to hate the people they deemed guilty of murdering their Messiah. In like fashion, Jews eagerly regarded Christians as "goyim", no better than common cattle, unworthy of the least consideration save that they had to be approached with cautious respect because they were dangerous creatures, mere empty-headed animals with swords.

We could skip, traipse, and dance merrily down a drearily long litany of similar examples that demonstrate the gross and prosperity-sapping inefficiencies of such degraded human relations where people invest their precious resources toward their mutual suspicions and hatreds. What a sad, tragic, and shameful waste of our most precious commodities! Consider that the vast and overwhelming majority of human technological advancements have come to us in our frenzied search for military advantage over those for whom we hold little better than suspicion and contempt because they are not us. Contrary to the almost universally accepted false dichotomy, one group of humans can in fact live and let live. One group is under no obligation to love another. Two populations may readily find the other repulsive in virtually every way and still choose and actively endeavor to leave each other alone and in peace. But no; we actively endeavor to interfere with one another up to and including the point of mass, mechanized slaughter.

And why? It is decidedly not perforce due to "human nature" but almost always the result of an agitating outside force, most often "government" though not universally so, that whips people into frenzies of fear, paranoia, and blind hatred such that the respective populations, so primed, become eager to go at each other, as if it were all a grand cock fight. At the very least, the petty suspicions cultivated by the muck-raking tyrant can serve to establish and maintain a virtually perpetual state of low-intensity stress upon the populations in question that tax away much of the vitality that would otherwise be devoted as matters of natural course toward far more profitable enterprises. But such endeavors turn eyes away from the vainglorious Fearless Leader, whose deep mental pathologies render him wholly incapable of tolerating such slights to his self-assessed magnificence. Furthermore, the eyes that turn away from the despot today, become the backs that turn toward him tomorrow, and that simply cannot be allowed.

Natural social cohesion, born of men's broadly inherent propensity for mutual and cordial cooperation in reciprocally profitable endeavors, brings power to individuals that the tyrant would pathologically covet as his own, often by any means with which he feels he can get away. Modern scientific method, as well as ascendant technologies, have been adeptly employed pursuant to the goal of perfecting one man's craft for subjugating and lording over the rest. Little is left to chance anymore, the dregs of loose ends shrinking in number and significance with every passing year.

"Divide and conquer", with the aid of science and technology, has finally come into its own as a political weapon for the destruction of freedom, the effects of application being readily detectable by anyone willing to see.

I wish I had better news for humanity, but alas, this is the woeful pass to which we have allowed ourselves to be corralled. Whether hope remains that Theye might be removed as threats to the human prospect may not be clear at this time, but regardless, I believe it behooves us to become aware of Themme, what they are doing, and to adopt a warrior's attitude of resolute non-compliance. Perhaps ninety percent and more or Theire efficacy stems from the willful compliance of those over whom they presume to lord. Remove cooperation in sufficiency and suddenly Theye become faced with the decision of pressing their force upon us, or backing down.

Honestly folks, I see us as having absolutely nothing to lose by resisting tyrants at every turn because submitting to Themme is tantamount to a long and drawn out act of suicide, not much unlike that of the alcoholic who drinks himself to death over the course of thirty years of imbibing. Is that the future into which you wish to be thrust; to which you would relegate your children and their issue, going down the generations into the blue future? May I gently suggest you think about that carefully before choosing inaction?

The world teeters this day on the brink of a deep and dark abyss. Are we really so corrupted with fear, grasping, and lassitude that we would relegate our presumably beloved posterity to lives of blank sameness, poverty, servitude, and timid misery? Or will we rise to the challenges of the tyrant with the objective of driving him from his throne, to the gallows? But that requires much of one. The question is whether it demands too much.

What say ye?

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

The Implications Of Rights

Greetings and felicitations!

As we inch our ways into yet another holiday season, I find myself moved to address a fundamental truth about human Rights.  It can be expressed in two axioms that follow directly and apodictically from the fundamental premise of the "inherent rights" of each individual human being:

1. A Right, regardless of its nature, directly implies the Right to exercise it.
2. The Right to exercise directly implies the Right to validly obtain the means of exercise.

Were we to put this into a somewhat loose notation of symbolic logic, we would have this:

Definitions:

R = Right

Re = Right to exercise

Rm = Right to means of exercise

-> = "implies" or "leads to" 

∴ = "therefore"

QED = "thus it is demonstrated" 

Logic chain:

R -> Re

Re -> Rm 

∴ R -> Rm

 QED

This "proof" is not complete by any means, but I include it just for clarity's sake.  A proper formal proof would require additional steps not immediately relevant to the purposes of this work.

These axioms have, to my limited knowledge, never been addressed publicly by anyone in any fashion that might be credibly termed "common".  It is my purpose here to correct that most perilously egregious misstep on the part of humanity, to date.

Returning to essays past, specifically "What Are Rights?", we find the definition of a "right" includes:

Right, n.  ...

2.  That to which one has a just claim

We may perhaps then agree that each of us has a right to life, for example.  That is, we each claim our lives as our own; our "property", if you will.  I further believe we may also agree that those claims are indeed just and valid.  After all, what would it imply were we to say that our claims to life were invalid?  Nothing good, I suspect.

Let me once again use the Second Amendment of the American Bill of Rights (BoR) as an example.  If I hold the right to keep and bear arms, then by direct implication I hold the right to exercise the right.  After all, if I claim the right but disavow the right to exercise, have I not engaged in contradictory reasoning?  It makes no whit of sense to claim the right, yet to deny that I also possess the valid authority of exercise.  In the very best case, the denial of the latter reduces the former from Right to privilege, and here I am being very generous and optimistic.  The more likely case is that it would reduce it to nothing at all, beyond mere utterances.

Therefore, we can see clearly that a right, sans the right of exercise, is in fact no right at all, but an empty claim and nothing more.  Noises.

We have now established through the simplest sufficient means the chain of implication from the right to keep and bear arms to the inseparable and unavoidable corollary right to exercise one's right to keep and bear arms.  In the language of contracts and legislation, these are non-severable.  Remove one, the other disappears into the vapors.  Violating one perforce violates the other.

If one holds the right to keep and bear arms, directly leading to the right of exercise, then the final link in the logic chain that makes a Right precisely what it is, is the right to validly obtain the means of exercise.

I claim the right to keep and bear arms.  This means I also reserve the right to exercise the right.  In order for me to be able to exercise my right to keep and bear arms, I must be able to obtain armaments of whatever nature and quantities for which my morally valid means may provide.  To clarify that last bit, it means that I am entitled to obtain arms by whatever noncriminal means are available to me, such as through purchase, barter, or begging.

If a spear is for sale for $5 and I have at least that much cash in hand, I am entitled to purchase and take possession of that spear in exchange for the sum in question under conditions of mutual agreement between seller and buyer.  The same may be said in the case of barter.  The man at the flea market is free to trade his .50 caliber Barrett for my  3/4-ton pickup truck if we are each in agreement to the exchange.  Nobody outside of the immediacy of the circumstance of the agreement holds the least right to interfere in any way whatsoever with the transaction, all else equal.

What this does not imply, however, is any right to be provided with the means of exercise by others at no apparent cost to oneself.  Therefore, if I want that Winchester '97 shotgun for household defense, but have no money, I am not entitled to obtain the weapon by force of expropriation because that is what we normally call "theft" or worse, "robbery" when backed with threats of harm.  And so it is with all taxation, but I digress.

One holds the right to obtain instrumentality, but only by valid and noncriminal means.  The application of force or other means of coercion do not qualify as valid, but only as criminal.

And so it may be extrapolated to any right whatever.

One more basic example for completeness' sake, our esteemed First Amendment, free speech clause.

I claim the right to speak freely as my conscience may move me.  If I indeed hold that right, and it would be most monumental an endeavor for anyone in denial of it to prove otherwise, then it would appear quite intuitively and forcefully obvious that I also hold the right to exercise, which is to say, to speak my mind freely without fear of retribution or other danger, all else equal.  How, pray anyone tell, could I be said to reserve a right to free speech whilst being denied the right to exercise?  Once again, it is a senseless contradiction, the invalidity of which shouts at us in shrill timbre.

Having again established the link between the right in question and its derivative, the right to exercise, we move to the third: the right to obtain the means of exercise.  This example is in some cases slightly difference from that of keeping and bearing arms in that we are born with voices, which constitutes a means of expression.  Well, most of us are.  But what of those who have no anatomical ability to speak?  As the logic runs, they are by all means entitled to pursue, for example, medical remedies that would endow them with a speaking voice.  Would anyone deny that this is so; that a congenital mute has no right to pursue endowment with the power of vocal speech?  I surely hope not, as that would prove most disturbing.

In the absence of medical remedies, would such an individual not hold the right to pursue other avenues of speech, such as a laptop computer?  Pen and paper?  Learning sign language?  Is there anyone on the planet who could credibly deny that such people hold the right to endow themselves with such means?

The very same applies to the vocally intact, as well.  Spoken language is but one form of speech, the most direct form.  But there are more oblique forms as well.  There is written language, for one.  And what of "art"?  Is that not a form of expression?  Our courts seem to think so.

If I choose to exercise my right to free speech through paintings or sculpture, for example, have I not the right to obtain the materials by which to engage in these forms?  Would anyone deny my right to purchase pen and ink?  Paint, canvas, and brushes?  Marble, chisels, and mallet?

This may all seem very basic - perhaps even silly for its obvious evidence - yet I maintain that it is of supreme importance that every man consider it, understand it completely, and accept it as apodictic truth.  In addition, it behooves the intelligent man to develop the habit of thinking in these terms where rights are concerned and to raise the points any time a fellow human being suggests a course of action, whether personal or legislative for examples, that would in any way thwart, infringe, limit, disrespect, circumvent, or otherwise trespass upon the inherent and sovereign rights of any man, no matter the purport of the necessity or authority to do so.

When people come to a sufficient understanding of not only what defines a Right, but what is implied by the general concept, along with developing the proper habits of regard for them, as well as that of challenging any and all who would trespass, the world will become that quantum improved.  I will suggest that the quantum in question stands to be massive.

Along with your word as your bond of trust with your fellows, as well as your relationships therewith, your Rights are the remaining fundamental possessions that shape and hold the most basic effect in terms of Proper Human Relations.  Additionally, they are the only ones with which you were born, the others being learned, accumulated, and cultivated over the course of our lives.  They are part and parcel of who and what you are as a living being, in no way less than are your heart, hands, brain, etc.

Would you suffer another to cut away your hands?  Your liver?  Eyes?  Your soul?

If not, then why your Rights?

I would implore you take the time to think on this for as long as it takes for the twig of understanding to snap loudly in your thoughts, for it is of an importance so central to the condition of human existence, that it cannot be overstated.  Not only your existence, your life, but that of everyone around you including those for whom you care and love.

Spread this knowledge as broadly as you are able, for this is the deepest and most important of all human legacies, for they are the pillars of the very freedom that defines the creature that you are, more than any other.  Without your rights, you are as nothing more than a lump of flesh, rightly subject to the whims and arbitrary powers of other lumps of flesh, to do with you as those powers and whims might decree at any given moment.  Is that the status to which you wish to be relegated?  Your friends?  Your family?  Your children?

If you wish to be more than that, then change yourself and your ways of thinking about such things.  Change your habits and make of yourself a formidable force for goodness and rectitude; for freedom.  It is possible, requiring of you nothing more than the will do make it so and the belief that the goal is attainable and worth the effort.  Would I go a step too cheesy-far to implore you do it "for the children"?  Even I have to laugh at that bit, and yet there is a seed of serious truth in it.

The future, the very soul of humanity hangs in the balance.  It it that important.

Be well, and until next time, please accept my best wishes.

Are We Being Set Up Yet Again?

Despite long experience as a witness to the stupidity of the so-called "left", my normalcy bias remains strong in that I still find it difficult to believe that they are quite as stupid as they now appear, judging by what is reported in media, or that they are not themselves being centrally controlled by forces of which they are unaware.

If we are to believe even one percent of that which we are fed via broadcast and network media, that Democrats (for example) keep doubling down on their bankrupt stupidities at every nexus, then truly the world is going mad in the most dangerously literal sense. Take the bloviations of Fauxcahontas, Lizzy Bord... erm... Warren, going on about 50% tax rates if Democrats retake the House. How can they not see that this is going to avail them nothing good in terms of retaining what power they still hold, much less gaining more? It seems somehow too convenient.

While I know that a great many people tend to be this utterly stupid on the average, I cannot quite accept what we are seeing as "organic". It all seems too perfect - too conveniently that which we want to see from the "left". Do liberty-oriented people not wish to see the "left" some flying apart at the seams unto its complete destruction as a political force? That we appear to be seeing this happen with nary so much as a hint of question from voices on the so-called "left" - it has become for me impossible to not remain suspicious that this is all political theater with a very definite purpose, rather than the usual haphazard variety of black comedy to which we have been daily treated for more decades than one cares to contemplate.

While it appears that Trump is doing good things, could it all be a smokescreen for sinister things to come? I do not want to go off the edge of morbid paranoia, but I find myself unable, or at least unwilling, to dismiss the possibility that we are all being lead into a tight and ultimately perilous corner.

More specifically, what if this is all truly a show such that Theye (those in truer, deeper political power) have decided to sacrifice the "left" for the sake of delivering the fatal blow to human freedom from the "right"?

Imagine it is a setup where lefties go so far off the rails that even many on the "left" do double-takes and jump ship for the insanity issuing from that quarter. There's the thesis in the Hegelian dialectic I hope is not at work.

The antithesis is Trump - the strongman who sweeps in to save the day, and does so... at least at first. Taxes down; economy recovering; dismantling of some of our enemies. Yay!, right? Maybe.

And, of course, the synthesis would be a new tyranny having the strong support of the people; a tyranny for which the people have come to clamor for the false promises it makes of safety, security, prosperity, and most ironically of all, freedom. What if all this is designed to get the gross majority so deeply on board with the Trump juggernaut for the purposes of ringing in a new era of tyranny, colored and flavored differently?

This does not have to be the child of Trump, either. In fact, I would deeply doubt that even a man such as Trump could pull it off without Theire blessing. But it is as readily likely, more so actually, that Trump is just a useful pawn to whom Theye are paying out the rope, letting him run as he might; that is, until he has corralled the people into the precise position in which Theye wish them maneuvered, intentionally or otherwise. At that point, perhaps Theye could squash Trump like a bug, or pull out (please forgive the unintentional pun) the trump cards by which the president would be reeled back to heel such that he would be denied any escape from having to make the choice of toeing Theire lines or facing utter filial destruction.

I suppose it is all a long-shot and not very likely, but can we afford not to at least keep the possibility in the backs of our minds awhile, remaining vigilant for signs?

What if, rather than 1984-style tyranny, which is the way of the "left" and which is now utterly discredited as a sound and reliable mechanism for maintaining control over vast populations, Theye have decided to switch BACK (American-style) to "Brave New World", where just enough candy coating is slathered over the dark, leaden, and stench-rotten core such that people clamor for more, rather than resist?

Brave New World was always the more frightening vision for me ever since I was required to read it in high school. 1984's vision left the enemy openly visible, identifiable, and hated, whereas that of Huxley's story concealed the tyrant in a vaseline halo as the beneficent provider of all things essential, from soma to birth control and all manner of idiocies specifically designed to render people dumber than posts, and keep them that way through their own wills. No guns necessary, nor open and obvious threats, but only those of the most subtle and seemingly innocuous sorts.

Huxley was smarter than Orwell in that his tyranny employed stick and carrot methods, mostly carrot, whereas Orwell's tyrant used naught but the stick, and with great profligacy. Why beat a man into submission if you can entice him of his own free will? It is less costly, less risky-laden, and self-reinforcing.

So what if this is the case in the here and now? In comes the Messiah and the people cleave to him as to a god. Just look at how the cult of personality sucked in the hapless German people in the 1930s - so much so that Hitler and his bully boys no longer felt the restraint of Law that would otherwise have limited their prerogatives. The result was tens of millions murdered and nearly an entire continent destroyed both physically, economically, and I daresay culturally as well, even if that last bit was not made immediately obvious.

Clearly, this is a possibility. But how likely is it? I cannot say with any certainty at all, but I can say that it has happened in the past, that it happened not that long ago, and that humanity has a frighteningly short and faulty memory where such issues are concerned. I see this possibility as very strong.

So you tell me how likely it might be that this sort of thing is afoot yet again. If not very, then upon what basis do you come to such a conclusion? Before deciding, bear in mind that this is big-league politics of which we speak and that the wad of humanity has been set up time and again by clever men bent upon achieving some political objective. Is there any positive basis for rejecting this possibility out of hand?

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.