The Second Age Of Kings

The second age of kings appears to be dawning.

What does this mean?  A look at the first age may provide some clues.

I know of nobody who is certain when and how the first age of kings began.  It is not even always clear how the first kings comported themselves with respect to their relationships with those over whom they ruled.  However, given what is known of human proclivity, it may be safe to say that the first kings may have been something different from those who came later.

If we are to accept that lands such as Sumer were the first examples of human civilization as we now come to think of it, one must ask why they were founded and how.  The question of why requires no great talent for imagination in order to come up with some reasonable speculations.  Areas conducive to trade were probably prone to marauders since the earliest days.  Therefore, the advantages of a walled city may have proven highly appealing for people who had been living a comparatively exposed life in the open.  Getting the first such city built, however, must have been quite a feat.  Could a leader have been able to force others to toil at the task of building?  Possibly, but it seems unlikely in a time when individualism was strong, division of labor less refined, and the average man very much more capable of surviving on his own or in small bands or tribes than we find today.

This being a likely case, it seems unlikely that the earliest men in charge, to whom I refer to as kings for convenience's sake, would have been able to get away with an authoritarian approach to leadership.  We will not go into any details about this here as they are not relevant and speculative at best. Suffice that perhaps the leader of the first walled city lead by consensus.  This seems likely.

For how many iterations this mode of leadership may have prevailed appears to be anyone's guess, assuming it ever existed at all in the comparatively large societies of these walled cities.  What we do know, however, is that at some point in history, kings were no longer just leaders and chiefs, but bosses.  Their word had become law across the face of the so-called "civilized" world to the degree that they enjoyed what appears to have been effectively unlimited prerogative to acquire, keep, and dispose of other human beings as their whim and designs saw fit.

The pharaohs of Egypt are perhaps the earliest examples of this transformation from leader to absolute authority.  This was the pattern for several thousands of years until the Greeks appear to have partly mucked up the works with their forms of governance, which were still seemingly despotic in many respects, but not to the same degree seen in the rest.

It is fair to say that some kings were "better" than others in how they treated their subjects, but this is a strictly a relative measure and at the end of the day the king was still the law.  The Torah gives several examples of this relative difference in character of kings, but to my knowledge it nowhere questions the validity of the notion of "king".

Until the advent of the Christian era, the kings of the world appear to have in the main enjoyed more or less unlimited authority over their subjects.  They collected taxes and lived lavishly in many cases; conscripted men for soldiering duties, and so on mostly without challenge.  In fact, many of the people may well have welcomed the presence of the king as a fatherly figure who would protect them from the harms that would otherwise have befallen them at the hands of marauding bands of dangerous men.

In olden times, the better of the kings must be given credit for their bravery as often they were at the heads of battle charges and many were slain.  It was not until in later times that they remained at the rear in comparative safety.  This willingness to put themselves in harm's way in defense of their people was expected of kings at one time.  But as the ages passed, kings became less and less servants of their people and more and more servants of themselves.

The one constant, however, was the nearly absolute nature of their authority.  This is a key element in understanding the creature and it should be well apprehended.  What counts mostly in the psychology of a king is not so much whether they will be good to their subjects, but that the choice is theirs alone and having been made, is unchallengeable.  It is the challenge to the absolute quality of their authority that would get a king worked up most.  An otherwise "good" king could turn to utter barbarity if the limits of his authority were ever to be questioned, especially openly before others.

By this simple formula did the kingdoms come and go for millennia.  But when the Christian ethic surfaced, a revolution of thought had been launched, the concepts therein impossible to stuff back into Pandora's box.  With the notion that the Almighty was like you and loved you and made you in his image and that all men were equal in his eyes became the elements by which the unquestionable would first be questioned by an ever growing contingent.  In time the questions became more boldly framed and openly expressed, and often the kings responded with the sword in their attempts to maintain the status quo.

The seed, however, had taken root.  People cottoned to the notion that their lives were not worthless and pointless and that the king was nothing but a man in God's eyes.  And as king's grew more desperate to keep the cork in the bottle with violence, and as people's acceptance of their basic self worth grew, conflicting with the king's claims of absolute authority by right, some of the world came to greater unease.  Magna Carta was at least in part a response to this uneasiness that was growing in parts of the world and became a nexus point in the first age of kings, a document which furthered the Christian ethic by legally formalizing its precepts such that for the first time in a long time the king's authority was openly circumscribed.  Kings still held enormous power, just not as much as they previously had.  A new trend was in its infancy.

Then came the renaissance and while kings retained great power, this was soon to change.  As time marched its march, the notions of equality and of the limits of kings developed and for the first time such men were on the wane in terms of what were allowed to do, the operative term here now being "allowed", which implies a limiting agent.  With the institution of the British Parliament, for example, the powers of the English king were significantly limited.

It was with the Age of Englightenment that the first age of kings went into its death throes.  With the rise of science and reason as the new authorities over which kings held no credible power, kings became largely impotent in relative terms and many thrones disappeared outright.  With the dawn of the modern era, the king had become an endangered species and the rights of man were at least outwardly touted by a vast plurality in the western world and for a while it appeared that the human race might well be evolving into something different; something better than it had been.

But then some funny things began happening, one of them in Russia in 1917 when a mob of peasants and factory workers managed to overthrow one of the few remaining traditional monarchies of Europe in the name of equality and justice, much as had the French about 130 years earlier.   But as was the case in France, the elimination of a more or less traditional despot resulted with his replacement by one of a new sort; a despot who had no material reality of which to speak, though it had a name: the state.

The modern state of the past 150 years, of course, has turned out to be far more powerful, muderous, destructive, and generous in doling out human misery than all the kings of the previous six thousand years put together.  But even so, the notions of human rights nevertheless made advances in a slow but steady fashion and at least the overt talk was that of limited governance and human rights.  It was upon this basis that the United States was established and took the notions brought to us first by the early Christians and Magna Carta to the next level. With its establishment and progression into its first half century, the first age of kings received another blow, perhaps the greatest ever, as Europeans fled their homelands in favor of the far freer air of America.

Sadly, this was not to last, for kings are not fond of having their authority put to flight.  As the traditional form of the kingdom faded into obscurity in favor of so-called "democracy", those who retained some considerable measures of power and who sought more were obliged by practicality to alter their appearances and modes of behavior.

As the traditional king became extinct along with the aristocracy, a new form of tyrant emerged with the so-called "state" and a new aristocracy arose in the form of the bureaucrat.  At the beginning, those people had to work quietly behind closed doors because the concepts of liberty and equality had caught on like wildfire in America and to a lesser extent and different form in Europe.  And it was quietly that they went to the task of reclaiming the throne, so to speak.  The period from just prior to the American Civil War (War of Northern Aggression) until about 1980 was the time where those behind the scenes were by practical reality obliged to work in the shadows and affect change in small increments with little bites here, a small push there, always backing off when the wrong nerves were hit and the people complained.

But in time, the small increments of change toward their favor began to add up and in the era sometime during or shortly after 1980 the United States began experiencing a quantum shift toward ever larger incursions and trespasses into the rightful territories of the individual, the great masses having been on the one hand successfully lulled into the belief that "it can't happen here" and on the other the fear of nuclear annihilation in and exchange with the Soviet Union kept their minds occupied.

As the 80s yielded to the 90s, the increments became ever more obvious, until finally on 11 September, 2001 the pretenses were essentially dispatched when the World Trade Center was destroyed along with about 3000 American lives.

Root causes can be endlessly argued along many lines, but what cannot be argued are the results.

Now, as we progress from one day to the next, so-called "government" encroaches further upon us not by nibbles and tentatively tiny steps, but by leaps and bounds.  The freedoms for which so many have sacrificed their lives now fall under the very real threat of extinction by those in power.  The "state" now responds to non-criminal issues with deadly force in the form of police entry teams.  The sword is making a comeback as the solution of first resort in cases where an absence of immediate and utter compliance by what is now effectively a serf meets with the displeasure of agents of the "state".  With each passing day the authority of the "state" takes another, larger steps toward the absolute.

This new era that threatens to come to life and fall upon us as a ravening beast I call the Second Age Of Kings, for even though there may be no man sitting upon a throne obvious and holding the title "king", there are councils of men whose decision making powers are approaching absolute status.  The effective result of being ruled by such councils is indistinguishable from those of the despots of yore.  Therefore, their rise to primacy is in effect the second coming of the kings, only I fear that these men lack even the smallest sliver of the moral character that even the worst of the kings of old possessed.  It is my suspicion that these men, once they have cemented their power to the point they can no longer be materially challenged, will make the bloodiest and most wicked rulers of ages past appear as eunuched choir boys.

Today's rulers have at their disposal not only a vast and rapidly growing array of technologies by which to control, manipulate, and destroy huge populations, but an absence of any discernible moral compunction to act in whichever ways they see fit to achieve goals that are the products of some very unsound and eminently questionable ideas about people, the world, and everyone's place therein.  They appear ready and willing to do whatever they feel the must to get what they want regardless of the outrage.

Unless these people are stopped by some means and without equivocation, bloody or miraculous, the world into which our posterity is to soon be delivered shall not be a pretty one, but rather one where individual freedom has been wiped away from list of human possibilities.

Is this the world you wish for yourself; for your children and others whom you love?  If not, it is high time you got to thinking about what it is you plan on doing about it.  Working "within the system" is unlikely to be sufficient to bring success because it is structured in such a way as to naturally result in failure to produce the results other than that which has been pre-scripted by those in power.

Therefore, the only possible paths to salvation must almost by necessity lie beyond the status quo. Onus rests with each of us wishing to remain as free men to find those paths and work them, rather than wasting time in the naive belief that mere voting and the sort are going to dislodge the new kings from their thrones.  Such men never hold political office and their names are rarely, if ever, known to the public.

I believe that massive, peaceful civil disobedience is one of those paths.

Consider what you really want in life because the time may be soon upon us where you will no longer be allowed such choices.  Please consider this carefully.

Until next time, please accept mybest wishes.

The Four Necessities

Since ancient times there have been those among us who have strived to gain, maintain, and grow power over their fellows.  There may have been a time when such men served practically justifiable roles in a world that may have been in some ways more dangerous.  Civilization as we have come to know it, began with the walled cities of places such as Sumer and Akkad.  Such walls do not build themselves, and so it may have been that people at that time worked in voluntary cooperation pursuant to the goal of their common defense.  The historical record is not quite clear as to how many such cities were built through voluntary cooperation vis-a-vis forced servitude or even outright slavery, nor it is particularly relevant in the context of this work because we know that many such cities were built at the point of the sword.  The tyrant is fact.  The presence of despot kings and the like are well documented in the annals of human history, constituting one of the truly reprehensible constants of our lives as free-born beings.

But other factors in our lives have changed.  With the advent of ideas such as those of Christian ethics and those enshrined in the Magna Carta, the minds of men have changed, albeit by small increments.  There was the time, representing most of human civilization's temporal existence, where the king's word was law.  By this virtue and backed by the sword, people were trained in their thinking to accept royal fiat as their obligation almost no matter how outrageous the resulting injuries to themselves.  The king's tyranny was accepted as a fact of life.  His right to play the tyrant was commonly unquestioned and universally unquestionable.  Those who did question most often met with grizzly fates.

But as the mindset of blind acceptance by the common man slowly changed to one of questioning and eventually rejecting the king and priest as absolute authorities, those seeking to retain their positions and status as powers among their fellows were faced with the challenge of how to do so against the rising opposition to the olden style of openly capricious and viciously cruel domination.

It became increasingly the case that such men were ever less able to brazenly declare themselves the absolute and unchallengeable rulers of the rest, for the hazards of the old approach to dominion had increased significantly.  Therefore, such men had to discover and employ new means whereby the sword became an issue of n-th resort, if not yet the last.  Being the clever fellows that such men tend to be, the once distasteful prospect of lying became the tyrant's new best friend, for through lies was he able to gain the consent of those over whom he presumed to rule.

In time and for a while the sword took a less prominent role on the front lines of one's daily tyrannies, demurring to the greater efficacy of the word, which when artfully misused tended to gain the consent of the people to all manner of abuse.  Naturally, the sword was still commonly applied when the timbre of the king's tyrannies went past the limits of tolerance.  But as time progressed, such tactics were viewed with ever greater criticism as the concepts of human rights developed among the larger mass of civilized humanity.

Therefore, it behooved the smarter cultivators of political power to use that which worked best: words.  But there had to be some principled or at least empirical basis upon which to frame such words.  There had to be a way to know which arrangements would work best and which not to use.

As it turned out, there was indeed such a basis and it has become the foundation upon which all modern tyrants function.  I call it the "Four Necessities", which are the fundamental human weaknesses which, when properly exploited, allow one to wield nearly universal and unlimited power over a population.  As men evolved away from the acceptance of kings-as-gods and toward the realization that no man stood so far above them, the tyrants came to realize something new was needed and they very rapidly zeroed-in on the Four Necessities.  After all, any military leader will tell you that one does not act against the strengths of his enemies, but rather his weaknesses.

To act directly against the strengths of an increasingly doubting and potentially angered mob would have been dangerously foolish.  What, then, were the weaknesses of those over whom they sought to gain and/or maintain their power?  The Four Necessities comprise the body of those most reliable of vulnerabilities in which the tyrant may place his deepest trust to aid him in achieving his ends with but the least prudence in their application.

The Four Necessities lists those failings of the human creature of which the tyrant must take sufficiently clever and ruthless advantage in order to capture and keep the consent of those over whom he would rule.  Failure to maintain sufficient control over any single Necessity would place the tyrant at some jeopardy.  History endows us with abundant examples of those who fell to the awakened wrath of those over whom kings failed to maintain heed of one or more of the Four.  The good news for the tyrant, however, is that with the least care in how one goes about employing the leverage afforded by the Four, one is virtually guaranteed long term success.  Only the most inexcusably inept manipulations threaten his position and objectives.

The Four Necessities, without which the modern tyrant cannot maintain control over a population, are:

1. Fear
2. Avarice
3. Ignorance
4. Lassitude

Fear has always been an obvious weakness of humans of which the kings of yore have taken great advantage.  But even fear has its limits.  Beat a man too much and he loses his fear and will fight back.  Therefore, fear is not sufficient in itself to the aspirations of power, particularly in the face of certain common belief systems.  It is, however, necessary in its ability to enhance the other Necessities.  Therefore, the wise tyrant cultivates the quality of cowardice in the great majority of his subjects such that they live in a state of constant, low-level, gnawing fear.  This may be manipulated in many ways and degrees in order to serve both shorter and longer term goals.

Avarice is the second human weakness.  When tightly coupled with fear, such as that of not getting what one wants or losing that which one has, the power over men grows mightily over the case where fear alone is the motivator.  Mind is nearly everything in the game of politics and once you have the mob convinced that they have something they greatly wish to keep, more than half the battle of the tyrant is won.  The other side of that coin is to cultivate a burning, itching desire for things they as yet do not have but may one day be able to acquire, and a seething sense of envy for those they deem beyond the reach of their lives.

Ignorance can take many forms and its effects most often great, despite being at times very subtle.  Small divergences from truth can result in yawning chasms between what an individual believes and what is in fact true. When closely combined with fear and avarice, ignorance brings the strength of the tyrant's powers to within but a few percentage points of being complete.  How can one rebel against tyranny if he is unable to identify it as such?    The unrecognized enemy is a safe enemy.

Propaganda has been raised to new heights of art, craft, and science in this age of electronic media.  During the twentieth century the despots of the time were quick to recognize the power of these new technologies and those very instruments made clear to them just how vulnerable the common man was to their powers of persuasion through the artfully misleading use of words, and now images, combined to form a new language of such vast power that the average man has great difficulty navigating the trickily opaque waters of the adept propagandist.  To this we bear witness every day as the news broadcaster spews and regurgitates the cleverly contrived expressions of the masters, laced with half-truths designed to lead the audience to a specific conclusion.  And it works like a charm.

Lassitude takes up the remaining slack.  To be lazy is a common and very fundamental human characteristic, just as it is among a great many other species, lions being a good example.  There is nothing wrong with being lazy - to a point.  But when laziness is overly encouraged by word and reward, it becomes a disease condition in men.

When the Four Necessities are properly cultivated in a population, the result is a man whose morbid greed and fear reinforce each other.  Having been lead astray into sufficient ignorance, his fear and avarice are further fortified by leaving him unaware of the truer nature of his circumstance.  Taking advantage of these three, lassitude is cultivated in the man such that by the synergistic force of his fear, his sickly greed, and his woeful ignorance, he finds himself devoid of any desire to alter his rueful condition, for to him it is seen as "normal".

Once a threshold has been crossed, each of the Necessities aids the others in a mutually reinforcing death spiral that can be overcome only by the wildest fluke or through some unimaginably gross mismanagement by those in power.  Or a miracle.

The effectiveness of this combination would be difficult to argue against, as our current state of political affairs so forcefully testifies.  Of interest, however, is the fact that as the state of the population to unconditionally accept the tyrant's whim nears perfection, the sword is once more slowly working its way up the ranks toward primacy.  Having fallen in status as a means of last resort, it is rapidly returning to its former glory as that of the first.  The evidence for this may be witnessed in the ever growing use of paramilitary tactics by police where they shoot first and ask questions later and for "offenses" of ever diminishing significance.  

Just recently a man named Octavius Johnson was savagely beaten by police with a horde of perhaps twenty or more officers showing up at his home, guns drawn and entering without warrant.  His offense?  Having expired tags on his truck!

The real telltale of such events is that these brands of barbarity are meekly accepted by the vast majority of people because they are afraid of what police may do - of what they may lose.  Or, far worse yet, they believe that what has been done is right, their ignorance working its magic in their lives in convenient reinforcement of their cowardice.  In all cases, there is insufficient motive to bring it to an end.  Fear.  Avarice. Ignorance. Lassitude.  All are now evident in alarming and dangerous abundance, intimately intertwined, the whole vastly greater than the sum of the constituent parts.  

While it is true that a growing number of us are standing against such behavior, the question remains open as to whether it is too little, too late.  It is my sincere hope that it is not, but I cannot claim to have found any basis for great optimism there.

Be that as it may, it is my genuine wish that people will take what is written here and give it some careful consideration.  Try to understand what this all means and see how it is in fact the case with the people around you and perhaps even with yourself.  Do not take my word for any of this, but accept it on a provisionally skeptical basis. Question everything and be observant of yourself and those around you and see whether you can identify where and how the Four Necessities are at work.  Pay close attention to what politicians say, what they neglect to say, and try to see where they pander and play to fear, avarice, ignorance, and lassitude.  I am confident that if you do this with some care and diligence, you will come to see what I see and that will be the beginning of your transformation.  But be patient with it because these things can be difficult to identify, especially if you have been heavily conditioned.

Unless we are willing to overcome those weaknesses that the rulers exploit to their various ends, which usually do not coincide with our best interests, we shall remain their wantonly helpless pawns as we jump with every twitch of a string.  Is this the brand of existence you wish to call your "life"?  For your sake, I sincerely hope not.

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

Taking The Fight To Themme

What I am about to propose here will seem pretty wild to some, and perhaps it is. But wild does not necessarily mean wrong. Some will stop somewhere in mid-sentence and think "this one's gone 'round the bend" and want to read no further.

Since I have been posting here I believe that on the whole I have endeavored with some success to maintain a well measured head in the ideas I have espoused. It is with this in mind that I will ask those of you who choose to read much further than this sentence to continue to the end so that you will understand that the more extreme sounding things I am to suggest are not in fact crazy, but the results of one of the only two places that we as a population can now go in this good land of ours. I've not been drinking and I am not a user of drugs. My mind is in a state of rational clarity and I alone am responsible for that which I am about to write on this page.

What I will address is a possible course of action I feel is one of our only remaining effective avenues for putting to an end a major facet of our current political problems: crimes perpetrated by so-called "law enforcement" agents and the failure of their respective departments and the courts to hold them properly accountable. In this I am holding no bars and pulling no punches. What I intend here is a bare knuckles address of what needs to be done in order to wrest control back where it belongs: our hands. What I will suggest may seem like madness to some, but I assure you that I have given this careful consideration and make such observations only with the greatest reticence and the regret that conditions are such that I feel them to be reasonable and necessary if anything is to remain of our lives, liberty, and any prosperity of which to speak that we might yet pursue.

We are living in what may be the end times. I do not mean this in the more common religious sense, but as it relates to the qualities of our lives. It now appears that we are daily treated to some new assault upon our freedoms and the rights to which we all hold equal claim. There are several facets - lines along which those in power mount assaults upon us in order to violate those rights in Theire attempts to show us who is really boss. It is my intent to address one of those facets that poses a clear and present danger: criminal behavior by law enforcement personnel. We are daily baraged with accounts of the criminal misconduct of various law enforcement agents and the consequent crimes of their respective agencies and the courts wherein the original perpetrators have been exonerated or otherwise excused for their felonious acts against the people and even actively protected from accountability.

How shall we regard this degeneration that daily progresses to ever deeper states of rot? Shall we continue to sit idly as the law enforcement juggernaut continues to steamroll us into the ground, often literally? How well has this worked out for us, as we peek at the entry team breaking down our neighbors' doors from behind the blinds, grateful that it wasn't us? Consider how many of those entries, some resulting in the fatal shooting of the occupants, were executed on the wrong houses due to errors in the warrants. Consider that in every case to my knowledge, not a single actor has been called to account for his actions.

Law enforcement is wildly out of control in the United States in these early decades of the twenty-first century as we find our freedom and indeed our very lives under mortal threat as a consequence. Agencies of all stripes murder and pillage the good people of this land on a daily basis. It has even been shown in some cases that such agencies actually planned with criminal intent to rob people of their property, murdering them in the process.

If you find this incredible, consider the case of the Los Angeles county sheriffs who entered and murdered a 72 year old man who had recently undergone open heart surgery when he dared defend his panicked wife as the unidentified, black-garbed thugs broke through the front door of their 5-acre Malibu estate. It was later discovered IN WRITING, the department's secret plan to seize the property through civil forfeiture laws by cobbling a false drug case against the owners. I happened to be in Los Angeles some time after this sordid affair ended murderously. The plan had been discovered by an investigator and the LA prosecutor's office REFUSED to bring charges against the murderers who comprised the entry team, as well as those from the same office who planned the heist. I stood before the television at my friend's house and witnessed the report myself, or I would not have believed that anything so outrageous could have been possible even in that county, notorious for their criminal law enforcement agencies and endlessly corrupt government.

Let that soak in for a moment. A SHERIFF'S department held in its possession a tax book in which they made notes of which properties they were to seize simply because they liked them and wanted them. They then breached and murdered the owners of at least one of those properties. This is FIRST DEGREE murder. Premeditated. Were you or I to make such plans and execute a cop in order to seize his home, is there any doubt in your mind that if apprehended we would face exactly those charges?

That was ca. 1997 and things have gotten far and away worse since then. We are now faced with a choice none of us should have to make: lay down or stand tall. For those not in the mood for bed at this point in their lives, it is time to start an earnest discussion of what it is we must do to stop this tide of aggression against the good people of this nation. To that end I believe it behooves us to start taking an account of who the government participants are, at least at the local level. Start collecting information on names and addresses of police, sheriff's deputies, prosecutors, and so forth. Knowing who they are allows us to track their whereabouts to some extent in the event they are foolish enough to commit crimes while on duty.

Next, we must be willing to hold these people materially accountable for their actions in the absence of same on the part of those in whom our trust has been vested, which includes the agencies for which the criminals work, the prosecutors who routinely fail to file the correct charges against such criminals or pursue them in such lackluster fashion that acquittals are all but guaranteed, and the courts who fail to adequately punish them for their crimes in the rare cases where convictions are attained. Yes, I said "punishment".

Because we cannot rely upon those whose jobs it is to see that criminal acts by law enforcement personnel are punished properly, onus falls to us to take up the reins they have willfully dropped and see to it that these most heinous of all criminals are held to account for their deeds.

Knowing who they are and where they live is the first step in holding them responsible. To that end I believe it serves the cause of justice for people to collect lists of such information by any means necessary, even if it means following such criminals around town and staking them out until such time as the location of their residence becomes known, as well as their other habits so that they may be located with relative ease in the event it becomes necessary to apprehend them as matters of citizens' arrest.

I suggest that as a matter of procedure we at least give the criminal justice system the opportunity to do its job, regardless of the monumental failures to which we have all been witness.

Having tabs on police and other similar characters is central to the cause of justice and the preservation of our liberty. Equally important is the will and means to act. Theye must come to experience the first hand knowledge that there are people who WILL hold them personally and very directly accountable for their felonies. There are those who, for example, will burn their houses down in the event they were to act treasonously against their otherwise good and peaceable neighbors. In time, this should give them some very serious pause and reason to take stock of the precariously dangerous positions in which they place themselves when they choose to act criminally in the course of their duties as agents of the public trust.  But this, of course, is the last resort extreme.  There are other avenues that may in fact prove equally effective.

Imagine developing compartmentalized local organizations that would collect and keep such information, plan for contingencies, and serve notice upon local agencies that they stand at risk if they were to engage in unwise action against said peaceable neighbors. I call this "taking the fight to Themme". No action should ever be taken, save in response to criminal action by officials. We do not want to become that which we loathe, yet must be willing to act with decision when we have been violated, for no transgression of Theires should be allowed to pass without full and unequivocal address.

The other approach, one which has actually worked very effectively throughout history, is the shun.  Were such criminals to be shunned by all among whom they live, their lives would become as living hells.  Imagine no local business allowing such persons upon their premises, forcing the criminal to travel out of town for the most basic necessities.  Imagine what their lives would be like were they unable to partake of any social interactions in the ways that everyone else could.  It might take a while to sink in, but in time the effect would be definite and very unpleasant.

Imagine shunning all prosecutors and others who fail to pursue the proper remedies against criminal police.  They and their families would be unable to live normal lives because of the choices actively made by them.

Some may be tempted to assess this as daft thinking, but I would have to counter by pointing out that these people are murdering us, and rates at which they are doing so are increasing dramatically. If you are not alarmed at the rate at which police, etc., are murdering mundanes, then I would have to submit that YOU are mentally unsound in the extreme. One of the problems here, of course, is the perceptive callouses so many of us have developed whereby what was once unthinkable is now met with yawns and, "oh... that."

Imagine if every time a cop behaved criminally against a mundane his life suddenly became severely boxed in to the point he was unable to do much else other than go to work and return home, or in more extreme cases face the direct material wrath of those whom they have violated. Unless these men and women are going to take on the gay lifestyle and live in a hardened bunker for 25 years, they will always be vulnerable to those who would hold them unequivocally accountable. One may argue against such tactics citing that it is too much work or Theye will just post guards around the homes of such officials. Not a problem because time is on OUR side. We can wait years. The cost to defend a single home per year by placing 24 hour guard would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. How long would any community be able to sustain such exhaustive expense? Not even Beverly Hills could do it for very long. Besides, anyone defending a criminal becomes accomplice and now they would be subject to the shun or even their homes would require protection, leading Themme into a very tight corner.

We outnumber Themme hundreds to one, at the very least. We have the advantages of anonymity, of being able to pick and choose the time to strike, the circumstance, and the method. They are at fixed locations - we are fluid. We blend in - they stick out as sore thumbs.

Continue with me a bit now. Imagine we began doing this. Cop murders someone. A team burns down his house. What would be the initial response? Hornets in a wild frenzy, especially after the note stating clearly that the fire was the first step in meting justice to the criminal. The local police department would be in a fury over it - endless money spent investigating and threatening. This would likely go on for months or until a suitable suspect was identified and apprehended, but for now let us assume nobody is "caught". They would harm themselves mightily in monetary terms chasing the ghosts who reduced the guilty cop's home to ash. Said cop might find trouble acquiring a new insurance policy, as well. Also consider that if he rebuilds, that house would also be burned. Keep destroying his property until he is brought before a jury on the correct charges and properly punished.  I do not disregard the possibility of  meting justice directly.  We hold the right to do this, particularly in the face of the failure of those in whom we placed our trust to do so.

Imagine a second incident occurs. Cops proactively put officer under protection. Lots of $ on that, and as I mentioned, the advantage of time lives with the agents of accountability. Will the protection remain for 6 months? A year? At some point, the PD will begin feeling the pinch. What then? Raise taxes? That should go over as well as a lead balloon in a community damaged by such creeps, the same ones who almost undoubtedly have turned the wick up on the mundanes over whom they now dominate. Either way the cops lose - they go broke or just serve to anger people even more, ever poisoning the well against themselves by extorting more money from the proles.

As tensions rise, cops are most likely to continue to commit ever worse errors against those who pay their salaries. History is rife with examples of how tyrants almost always react unwisely in such cases.  Beyond a point there are not enough police to provide all the protective services. Someone, somewhere, is going to be left exposed. That is where and when they are hit. Another house burned or car or ??? burned or otherwise destroyed. Or the cop is simply removed from the roles of the living. If the cop's offense was murder, I have no problem with simply dispatching him where opportunity presents itself.

You may think this is REALLY crazy, yes? I might otherwise agree, save for one thing: this is wartime, not peace. Theye have declared WAR on drugs, for example. Theye murder us on whim, citing officer safety as the excuse. Theye apprehend, beat, and imprison us for all manner of non-crimes. Arbitrarily labeling X a "crime" does not make it so - something most Americans have either forgotten or about which they have become lazy or just apathetic. We have been SO heavily conditioned to meekly accept the capricious abuse of "government" that acts of self defense and of holding accountable those who criminally damage us are viewed as crimes in themselves. THAT is where the crazy lives. When you believe that you hold no right to defend your life against state aggression, YOU are the one who has gone mad. When you believe that holding accountable those who have damaged you, especially when those who have been entrusted to do so refuse, is impossible or somehow immoral, then YOU are the one who is mentally deranged.

Make no mistake about this one fact: we are at war - right here, right now. Just because you do not see uniformed troops storming your neighborhoods; just because artillery and gun fire and aerial bombs are not raining down upon your community, it does not follow that a state of guerrilla warfare does not in fact exist in the place where you live and work. Government has taken its warfare to your community in guerrilla fashion. That it has not landed on your doorstep is as much the result of sheer chance as anything else. What else do you call an entry-team, armed to the teeth and eager to shoot, busting in your door, wrecking in minutes what may have taken you a lifetime to put together, perhaps shooting your dog or even YOU - maybe taking your children away, and then retreating, either with you in handcuffed tow or simply standing there with a load in your pants and your jaw on the floor as they rapidly disappear into the black night? Is hit and run not the very definition of guerrilla warfare?

We are in the midst of a nationwide guerrilla war between the mostly peaceable and decent people of this land and the "law enforcement complex". Consider that their skills such as breaching etc., are highly perishable. These must be exercised constantly or they go to pot in no time. Consider that exercise on a dummy course provides no proof-of-the-pudding. The real test comes with actual application in the world. Therefore, police departments are highly motivated to seek out as many opportunities for real-world practice as possible. This motive does NOT have to root in some evil intention. Very much the opposite, and THAT is where we find the greatest danger. Theye don't see the hazard because in their narrowly channeled and hopelessly distorted thinking they are doing God's work. If you are against them, then you become part of the problem, a person of interest, and all of a sudden you are viewed very differently and you'd better watch your back... or move.

Given the demonstrable fact that we are in a true state of war with those who may think they are defending... well, what exactly I cannot really say anymore, every shred of sense God put into a boiled turnip should be telling you that taking well organized measures to defend yourself against these people gone mad is not only right and proper, but that nature itself obliges you to the act. Failure to see this may be evidence of how complete has been your conditioning to accept the master's command such that you surrender your life on his capricious demand. If anything is insane, it is that.

So really, we each of us have a choice to make. Bow in tribute to the cult of state-mandated self-destruction, or stand tall. The latter does not mean painting a target on yourself like a fool, but rather that you seek out like-minded people and start forming action groups who will work to hold the Mob accountable for their crimes. The choice is yours entirely. Nobody is going to twist your arm to take action. Theye, in fact, want you to remain as impassive as possible so that they may harvest you if and when the time seems appropriate, whether by intent or by "oopsie". You have Theire thanks for remaining the willing candidate for their caprice and the slaughter that too often ensues when one's number is drawn.

But if you have no desire to be a willing throat for the master's knife, onus rest with you and your like-minded fellows alone to hold him accountable in the most stark terms for the crimes he commits. Relying on the "courts" is an act of willful error taken by those too cowardly or stupid or lazy or otherwise unwilling to see the truth that it is with ever growing rarity that such agents of the "state" are held to account for their perfidies. Cops and so forth literally get away with murder and are in fact now praised for their felonious deeds as witnessed by the standing ovation received by such men from Congress after having gunned down an innocent woman with a child in the automobile with her in Washington DC. How is it that we allow this?

Government tyranny CAN be fought successfully, IMO. The reason is has not succeeded is because nobody is DOING it. But let the first several dozens of bodies be found with the right notes on them, left by good and otherwise peaceful people who refuse to be destroyed and abused and we would see movement. After the first few hundreds of cop houses burned to the ground, perhaps with the criminals yet inside, there would be movement. I cannot guarantee it would be Theire wise retreat for which we would hope, but if not then Theye would be drawing clear the battle lines between us, and if that is what we the people need to get their heads our of their backsides, then so be it. Theye either retreat or escalate. Either way, Theye lose. But maintaining the status quo is the single condition that virtually guarantees Themme the long victory.

Make no mistake, in a very real sense it is us or Themme. Thus far, the score card is weighing heavily in Theire favor and if our freedom is ultimately reduced to rubble, make ye sure to know that it became so but as the result of our choices and not for the absence thereof.

Time is here.

Choice is ours.

We can stop this any time we want.

So far, we don't want to - at least not enough to make it happen.

Think about that awhile.


Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

UN Declaration of Human Rights - Articles 1-10

Herewith do we take a look into the meat of the UN Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR).  It is with an eye to semantic clarity, sufficiency, and correctness that we shall turn our attention to the document.  It shall be the purpose here to examine the articles to the point that either they are deemed sufficient and correct and of good and proper utility to the race of men or that they fail.  It is certainly true that in such a declaration of a purported "right" it is required that all elements addressed therein must be clear, correct, and complete to the purposes for which they are contrived to serve.  To that last point we may add that it behooves us to be perfectly clear about those very purposes, what they are, the reasons they are claimed as important, and an examination of all those to whom they purport to apply.

It is not the intention here to compose a vast volume on the merits and shortcomings of the UNDHR, but rather to determine the general timbre and sufficiency of its stipulations and to point out the general nature of its inadequacies, if any.

We will further make note of those places where the rights under consideration stray from those of the inherent and fundamental variety to those of a synthetic, arbitrary, and essentially contractual nature.  For those not familiar with the distinction, a couple of examples should prove helpful.

A fundamental and inherent human right is one that is part and parcel of the being and therefore cannot be excised by any means, whether legal or surgical.  The right to life, for example, which directly implies the right to preserve and protect it from danger, which in its turn further implies the right to acquire, keep, and employ the means to exercising the right, is inherent to the living being.  The right cannot be removed by any means, but can be violated in manifold ways and degrees.

A deer, for example, holds the right to make use of any means at its disposal to protect itself from being killed by a predator.  It may endeavor to remain hidden or, once discovered, to run away as fast as its legs will carry it.  It reserves the right to use its hooves and antlers as weapons against those trying to kill it if perchance it has been cornered.

A man holds the selfsame right to life and thereby the right to the means of preserving it, whether it be with firearms, clubs, fists, or a grenade.

On the other hand we have the contractual right, which is by nature synthetic.  That is to say, it is contrived in the mind and agreed to by the parties to the agreement.  For example, two people contract to have one wash the windows of the other's home and the other will pay him for the service.

In the political context, for example, one's voting rights are contractual in nature even if no specifically signed contract exists.  One is not born with a voting right, but rather it is bestowed upon him through law.  Were voting a fundamental right, it would not be morally permissible to deny one his voting activity during time in prison.  But because the right is artificial and there are conditions of performance attached to one's entitlement to exercise of it, failing to meet or by otherwise violating those requirements, one may forfeit his claim.

The right to the presumption of innocence in cases of criminal law as found in the United States is likewise contractual.  In France, the opposite is encountered, where one is guilty until proven innocent.  Therefore, we see that contractual rights are by their very nature arbitrary and therefore perforce subject to change on an equal basis.

The question of inherent v. contractual right is a very centrally important issue because a declaration of universal human rights should speak only to those claims that are inherent to the creature and not the product of arbitrary contriving, the latter being appropriate to contracts, constitutions, and perhaps some law.

This analysis shall be divided into three separate documents for the sake of taking nominally manageable bites and not present readers with a great wall of text.  Since there are 30 articles, the sections shall be numbered 1-10, 11-20, and 21-30.

Finally, this analysis is as much intended as a tutorial by example of how to conduct such examinations of just about any argument for its semantic quality and content.  If you feel you do not possess the skills to adeptly splinter the assertions and arguments of others, pay attention to how it is done here and you will at least endow yourself with some of the basics.

But to be more helpfully specific: question everything.  Always keep asking questions until you arrive at what you feel are irreducible truths.  And when you have arrived at the bottom of the rabbit hole, ask more questions, because one can never be quite 100% certain that you have run into the wall beyond which questioning will penetrate no further.  This is as much a matter of habit as of knowledge.  There is no doubt in my mind that you are capable of developing the skills and attitude for powerful thought.  It is a mere matter of getting to it and sticking with it.

Without further ado, let us then have at it.

Article 1.

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

The opening sentence, albeit vague, strikes an intuitive chord with many, myself included.  As far as it goes it may be casually considered agreeable, but in a formal document such as the Declaration such loosely constructed language fails to meet a minimal standard of semantic rigor.

The second sentence runs into further trouble, for while it is demonstrably true that some people are endowed with reason and conscience, it is clearly not the case for all.  To be fair, we note here that this is a relatively minor semantic nit being picked, but deem it worth noting in any event.  The second sentence runs into significantly greater trouble in its latter half where it attempts to specify how people should act towards each other.  We may assume the best of intentions here, but that does not save the author's reputation from stain, and in fact deepens the taint.  For one thing, what exactly defines the "spirit of brotherhood" and why "should" we act in that way toward each other?  Who has determined this and by what authority do they claim to speak for so many, if not all humanity?

If one is going to make a Declaration for all humanity, especially one whose tone rides perilously close to that of a universal mandate, the fundamental assertion cannot itself be sufficient to demonstrate justification.  There must be with it given a properly reasoned and sufficient contextual basis upon which the attestation is put forward.  Without it, the Declaration essentially boils down to an attempt at proof-by-assertion, which is invalid and thereby reduces the assertion to non-acceptability regardless of its truth value.  Such statements are of a different league from "I prefer vanilla" because they presume to speak to every living man, compelling performance at the point of the sword.  It is by necessity that when one speaks so broadly and with the presumption of such authority as found in the UNDHR, the requirement of proof of validity and correctness is absolute and cannot be disregarded, save at the peril of all credibility.

Article 2.

"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."

It may be argued that the placement of this as the second Article is oddly premature or perhaps late, depending upon how one looks at it. But given that as yet the enumeration or other specification of the rights to which reference is made is itself yet to be expressed, how are we able to accept whether everyone is so entitled?  Placement aside, the first sentence carries with it a strong intuitive sense of its truth and propriety because it appears to speak against arbitrary endowment of and respect for the rights in question.  This is a laudable seeming principle on its face and I will go so far as to say that it is correct.  However, the Article stands as incomplete because a sufficiently complete and properly reasoned basis for why the Article is valid and truthful is absent.

No matter how compelling such a declaration may appear or how appealing to the soul, they must not be accepted as true unless they are complete and correct in their specification.  This Article fails the test for completeness including a sufficient demonstration of correctness and therefore remains invalid and unproven.

There are a few other issues with the right as expressed in the Article.  For example, the catch-all, "or other status," is potentially problematic.  If, for example, one has the right to acquire, keep, and use kitchen knives and that right is absolute as clearly stated in the Preamble, then he retains that right even after having been duly convicted of a true crime and sentenced to a term in prison.  Given the sorts of places prisons tend to be, is it really wise to allow the inmates such free access to knives?  Just a point to consider aside from more philosophical issues.

The second line presupposes by implication that any given individual perforce "belong[s]" or must belong to some arbitrarily defined political entity.  What of free men?  The construction of the sentence is semantically vague, requiring a reader to fill in several holes.  For example, one must assume "distinction" refers to the rights to which the first line refers in order for the sentence to make minimally reasonable sense, yet anyone in political power is equally free to assume otherwise.  That aside,  the sentence seems to be saying that a person's rights stand regardless of the listed factors that may be in effect in the land from which he hails.  But what about when he is in a land that is not his home?

To what does "limitation of sovereignty" refer?  Limitations of sovereignty of a nation?  Of the individual in question?  If the latter, judging by the preamble which acknowledges rights as absolute and inviolable, in what manner does the Article speak?  Nothing is clearly delineated in the sentence and as such its meaning cannot be positively ascertained.

The Article is, therefore, reduced to dangerous nonsense and cannot be taken as meaning anything definite, thereby voiding it of all value, credibility, and authority.  These, however, are precisely the semantic properties of which the politically empowered bounder will take fullest advantage as he claims the authority to determine what a given sentence means vis-a-vis what the rest of the nation may think.

Article 3.

"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

Ignoring the now-customary absence of definitions of terms such as "life", "liberty", and "security", this Article goes a bit futher into specifics as to the right to which we are entitled.  Perhaps some help from the dictionary is in order.  To wit:

life
noun

1.   the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. 

2.the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, especially metabolism, growth, reproduction,and adaptation to environment.

3.the animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual.

4.a corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul. 

5.the general or universal condition of human existence.

lib·er·ty
noun 

1.freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.

2.freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.

3.freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right ofdoing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice. 

4.freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint:

se·cu·ri·ty
noun 

1.freedom from danger, risk, etc.; safety.

2.freedom from care, anxiety, or doubt; well-founded confidence.

3.something that secures or makes safe; protection; defense.

4.freedom from financial cares or from want.

5.precautions taken to guard against crime, attack, sabotage, espionage, etc..

6.a department or organization responsible for protection or safety.

7.protection or precautions taken against escape; custody: 

8.an assurance; guarantee.

The expressed "right to life" presents the fewest problems, yet the declaration still manages to fail to meet the minimal standard of sufficiency.  Once again, simplistically stating that each man possesses the absolute "right to life" is emotionally very compelling and the intuition tends strongly to take the assertion as true.  However, the right is expressed with not even nearly the amount of context that is required in order to render it acceptable as a statement of universal human rights pursuant to which the force of law would hold just authority.  But if it is to be claimed that the expression of the right as given above is axiomatically obvious and irreducible, onus still rests with the claimant to demonstrate that it is so.  Neither of the necessary conditions required of proof have been met.

In no way is the issue of conflict addressed.  Conflict of action and right raises very basic issues for which there must be proper solutions.  A declaration of universal and absolute human rights must, therefore, carry with it the acknowledgment of the need for such elucidations or references to them, if not the elucidations themselves, which in principle could become voluminous.  But at the very least such a declaration must make clear that the issue of conflicting rights or rights with actions is to be somewhere found and treated in its full detail and course.

For example, if one's right to life is absolute as the Preamble states it must perforce be, then if one is being murderously attacked in a dark alley, there is nothing in principle to prevent one in political power to declare that morally justifiable acts of self defense resulting in the death of the attacker constitute murder.  This is, in fact, very close to the case in the United Kingdom where people are put into prison for justifiably killing those whose attacks are reasonably taken to have been laced with murderous intent.  In fact, they are often jailed for causing such attackers any bodily injury.

Because there is no treatment of the issue of conflicting rights and actions given in the Article,  whether explicitly or in the form of simple recognition of the issues and reference to the places where specific treatments are given, the door of interpretation is left gaping.  Humanity has been treated to endless examples of the horrors to which such open doors subject the ruled at the hands of the ruler.

The precise same failings apply to the treatments of "liberty" and "security of person".  The latter, however, carries with it some further problems.  What, exactly, is meant by the "right to the security of person"?  The Article gives absolutely no clue as to the precise semantic character of the assertion and the failure is rather spectacular because the potential implications of at least one interpretation of the "right" are vastly reaching.

One possible interpretation is that of a negative right.  In that context we can say that the right to be secure in your person means, for example, the right not to be physically attacked by others.  In this specific case the negative right of one implies a positive duty of others to refrain from attacking him.  This, of course, would be the correct interpretation of the right as vaguely expressed in the Article.  The positive duty implied by the negative right comprises but a single simple and elegant prohibitive maxim that is readily met by all at no cost whatsoever to them.

Another possible interpretation is that of a positive right.  The positive right implies the positive duty of others to ensure one's security not only through refraining from attacking him, but by providing him with security through positive action.  This, of course, could lead to any number of positive obligations such as acting as body guards in the event he is attacked by another or providing him with the instrumentality by which he would mount an effective defense of himself.  Such instrumentality could include weapons such as firearms.  Another possibility would be the duty to provide persons with other means of securing their persons such as armored motor vehicles, impregnable houses, and so forth.  In other words, in principle there are no limits to the positive compulsory obligations that might be imposed upon one toward his fellows.  This is clearly identical to the fundamental nature of "rights" as found under welfare entitlements.  What is left is a legacy of potentially limitless and ungainly obligations, each of which exacts from each individual costs in both material terms ($, for example) and those of his inviolable rights as an irreducible being.

The positive duties concommitant with positive rights such as this comprise a potentially endless list of duties to which each man is obliged to perform for the sake of others and the "greater good".  Taken not even remotely to its extremes, positive rights can rapidly become overwhelming in this respect from the practical standpoint of one's available resources.  Some will argue that this is an unreasonable fear and base their assertion on the positive "fact" that such endless enumerations of onerous duties have not arisen.  This, of course, is readily arguable, but if we grant it as being so for argument's sake, it can point to no other conclusion than that it has not yet happened, rather than it cannot.

But let it be clear that the reason it has not happened is due largely to the enlightened self interest of rulers who seek to continue their reigns for as long as possible.  The interpretation of a vaguely specificed right as being positive in nature leaves open to those rational men in political power the broadest possible menu of potential mandates from which they may pick and choose.  This will always be preferable to them because more power is always preferable to less.  It would not likely serve them well to begin imposing impossibly large lists of specific obligations.  Far better to the purposes of power to choose carefully those mandates that give the best and safest returns on the risks of imposition.

By virtue of its vagary and failure to meet the standard of sufficiency, the Article fails completely and cannot be said to hold any adequately clear meaning, credibility, or authority.

Article 4.

"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."

Missing clear, complete, and correct (CCC) definitions of "slavery" and "slave trade".  As stated, the Article may be interpreted to mean nearly anything and as such offers no clearly identifiable protections. In addition, it places people transacting otherwise legitimate business at the mercy of state caprice.

Far more fundamentally, the Article specifies only a procedural prohibition, failing to specify the underlying inherent right.  The Article is therefore inappropriate to the Declaration and on that basis alone should be removed, perhaps to be included in some statutory specification or elsewhere.

The Article fails to meet CCC requirements, fails to address and fundamental human right, and on those bases carries no credible claim of authority.

Article 5.

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

No definitions of which to speak.  What, then, does this really mean?  What is the meter of "degrading"? Is it degrading to placed into a prison cell after having been rightly convicted of murder?  Not only is a clear, complete, and correct (CCC) definition of the term provided, no reference is made to the practical standard by which "degrading" would be judged, thereby leaving judgment open to arbitrary outcomes and caprice.

Are convicted child molesters, for example, to be afforded gourmet meals, cable TV, and provided with all the child porn they can handle?  After all, it can be reasonably said that denying one that to which he is accustomed constitutes cruelty.  During the 1970s courts even used to make reference to terms such as "relative deprivation", meaning that people accustomed to living in Beverly Hills mansions and brunching on caviar daily are "relatively impoverished" when circumstance would call upon them to eat mere lox for breakfast and live in a tiny ten-thousand square foot house in Belaire, Hollywood's lowly next door neighborhood.  As I recall, such references were often made in divorce cases where one party's legal representatives made cases for increased alimonies, the judges then having found themselves in tears at the thought of the devastation the party was to suffer in the wake of having to live on a mere half a million dollars per month.

The Article makes reference to a contractual right by specifying the benefit, "shall [not] be subjected..." but not specifically to the right in question.  While one may infer reference to an unstated inherent right, the connection is so vague that those in authority remain perfectly free to deny that any such reference exists.

The Article fails to meet CCC requirements and inappropriately addresses a contractual right.  Therefore, it carries neither credibility nor authority.

Article 6.

"Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law."

"Person" as in "legal fiction"? Why not phrase it as having the right to be recognized as a free and sovereign man? What is the definition of "law" as used in this Article? Does it refer to true law based in logically provable moral principle, or arbitrary statute? What, exactly, does it mean to be "recogni[zed]... before the law"?

Most importantly, the Article speaks specifically only to a contractual right rather than to one that is inherent, the references to the latter being very obliquely vague at best and perfectly deniable by those in political power.  This is especially worrisome when those in political office are the only ones with access to the means of brute physical force, such as firearms.

CCC failure, as well as failure to address an inherent right explicitly, and thereby bears neither credibility nor does it carry the least authority.

Article 7.

"All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination."

"Equal before the law" is another strongly compelling statement, emotionally speaking, and seems "right".  But if one stops to ask the pointed questions regarding what exactly does the statement as given mean in more explicit terms, the problems become immediately apparent.

The second sentence suffers from a vague semantic structure in that "Declaration" may be interpreted as referring to either the Article in question or the entire UNDHR.  Depending on how the sentence is interpreted, the Article may be regarded as having wildly differing meanings, and therefore potentially very different implications, consequences, and effects for all.

More deeply troubling is the absence of any precise explanation of what constitutes "incitement to such discrimination."    This inadequacy leaves the statement wide open as broadly interpretable, thereby placing people at potentially grave risk for acting in ways that no minimally intelligent and rational man would regard as intolerable.

Far more significantly, one should note that the Article speaks more to a contractual right than one inherent, making only a vaguely implied reference to a fundamental right in language to unclear that plausible deniability that any such right is referenced remains strongly in the hands of "authority".

Because the Article speaks to an arbitrary procedural benefit to which it declares all men entitled, it is not appropriate that it be included here.

Once again I remind you that these articles issue from a document that at least implies to purport to stand as universal mandates by which every man on the planet is obliged to comport himself under pain of the sword.  It is therefore clear that the Article fails fundamentally to demonstrate its correctness, completeness, credibility, and the least authority whatsoever.

Article 8.

"Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law."

The Article makes only oblique reference to some unspecified inherent human right via the specification of a contractual right to the means of remedy.  This places the cart before the horse, so to speak, and in a manner such that we cannot tell neither the horse's breed nor even if there actually is a horse of which to speak.  This Declaration is not the appropriate venue for the treatment of synthetic rights and the Article fails on that point.

Far more importantly, note the reference to "fundamental rights" as being "granted".  This is a failure of a terminally catastrophic nature and of monumental proportions such that overstatement would be next to impossible.  This assertion alone is sufficient to deny the least credibility to the entire Declaration and to call into serious question the competence and intentions of its architects.  The nature of this failure is to lace the entire Declaration with a fatal poison from which nothing of value can be recovered.  Also note that it stands in diametric conflict with the Preamble that explicitly states that rights are inherent to the creature, directly contradicting the notion that they are granted by any means whatsoever.

The notion that a fundamental human right is granted to the individual by some conceptual entity such as "the state" is dangerously preposterous and must under no circumstance be accepted as true in even the least epsilon.  The notion behind the words is dangerous to every living man on the planet and should be rebelled against with interminable fury and bluntly kinetic energy lest the race find itself hoodwinked into accepting a notion carrying with it the credibility of a flat-earth theory and he danger of an armed and down-counting strategic nuclear weapon.  Nothing good can come of its acceptance, but much harm will.

Beyond its more alarming flaws, this Article tells us nothing of substance, but announces an emotionally compelling idea shrouded in fog.  It is not only devoid of credibility, it hides a thinly veiled element of profound danger to all humanity and fails most spectacularly.

Article 9.

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."

The standard against which arbitrariness is judged is neither listed nor referenced.

Also note that the Article dances on the edge of propriety and sensibility as it refers indirectly to the fundamental negative right to be free from the violations by his fellows but couches its expression in the language of contractual stipulation and as a broadly expressed principle of legal formalism.  This renders the Article extremely confusing in that one cannot tell whether the right is being recognized for protection, being granted by the "state", or some senselessly contradictory combination of the two.

Recognition of the preexistent and inherent negative human right is appropriate in the Declaration, but must be made far more clearly, and completely.  The method used here is wholly inadequate, failing in every way imaginable.

Specification of the synthetic contractual right to some procedural benefit pursuant to the presumably inherent right as expressed in the Article is not appropriate to this Declaration and should have been presented in another document.  This is a tremendously basic error in structure and speaks very poorly of the performance of the Declaration's architects, or perhaps of their truer intentions.   Note that, given the structure of the Article, one can only weakly assume it refers to the inherent right because reference to it is made in only the most oblique fashion.  This leaves political "leaders" in the real world at ease to decide as they may see fit in any given moment when and how such a right may exist, if at all.

By these various basic flaws is the Article rendered devoid of meaning and is therefore non-credible and bereft of any authority whatsoever.

Article 10.

"Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him."

 Which definition of "tribunal" is at work here?  Is it a court of law or a seat of power?    Where is the cite to reference material so that we may see the specifications of these tribunals and know whether they are satisfactory to the competent dispensation of fair and reasonable justice?  What avenues of redress are open to us when we feel justice has not been served?  Are we to assume that everything has been taken care of competently and honestly?  Human history provides a vast parade of examples of the corruption of rulers and other heads of "state" who have bid their subjects, "trust me" as well as the appalling and seemingly endless horrors that have resulted.

There is no mention of trial by a jury of one's peers.  At least there it may be said with even odds that the people whose job it is to determine guilt are statistically likely to have no horse in the race, whereas a differently arranged tribunal, presumably of judges, may not be able to claim such impartiality with nearly the same degree of credibility and truth.

Note that this Article speaks not to fundamental human rights, but rather to those of a contractual nature.  Such rights differ from nation-state to nation-state, even from municipality to municipality, and sometimes even court case to court case.  This Article does not belong in this Declaration in the first place, but given it is there, the poor craft by which it was contrived voids it all credibility and authority.

Interim summary

As is plain to see, the UN Declaration of Human Rights thus far fails to live up to its title and the promises implied there.  While every article fails the semantic smell tests of clarity, completeness, and correctness, Article 8 carries with it the most deadly conceptual virus imaginable: that human rights are granted by other humans upon the rest.  The wild danger this poses cannot be overstated and one is behooved to educate himself as to why this is the case, a topic which may be addressed in another essay.

Until next time, please accept my fondest regards.

UN Declaration of Human Rights - The Preamble

Analysis.

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

"PREAMBLE

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,"

The opening sentence of the Preamble makes clear that all humanity possess equal and inalienable rights.  The specific nature of those right are not, as yet, specified.  Therefore, some assumptions will have to be made until such time as greater specificity may be encountered.  First, however, let us examine the definitions of "equal", "inalienable", "right", and a few other basic terms.

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


in·al·ien·a·ble
adjective 

1. not alienable; not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated: inalienable rights. 

Synonyms 

inviolable, absolute, unassailable, inherent.

e·qual
adjective 

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


claim
noun 

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

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


ti·tle
noun

9. property law

    a. the legal right to possession of property

    b. the basis of such right

    c. the documentary evidence of such right: title deeds

11. law
    a. any customary of established right

    b. a claim based on such a right

justadjective

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving on:

"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,"

Here we see the beginnings of reference to actual, enumerated rights.  There are, however, some problems.  To wit, thus far no irreducible basis is cited for the existence of these purported rights.  Therefore, the sentence constitutes an attempt at proof by assertion, which is invalid and therefore no proof at all.  This does not, however, imply that the assertions made therein are false, but neither do they establish their truth.  Nor do they define what constitutes "freedom of speech and belief", and while the truth of the assertion may be well clear to many of us, what of "freedom from fear and want"?  Let us forgo for now the fact that this stands as yet undefined.  We may, however, compare the semantic nature of this purported right with that of "free speech and belief".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,"

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

"Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,"

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

Beware of the concussion of language ineptly or malevolently used.

"Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,"

Who are "the peoples", exactly?  Does this refer to all the populations of all the member states?  Perhaps to their representatives?  Speaking only for myself, I can say without equivocation or other reserve that neither have I reaffirmed the stated faith, nor have I authorized any agent or other third party to do so on my behalf.  The use of "person" here is also vague.

"Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,"

Marginally acceptable, but the lack of specification of "rights" reduces this sentence to mostly gibberish.   Universal respect for and observance of human rights means nothing without sufficient understanding of what defines the claims in question.

"Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,"

Common understanding by whom?  All men or just the UN representatives?

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.