Reply to Justin Amash

Long time no blog. 
I thought I might share my reply to our local Congress-Critter's fundraising letter.

On Aug 22, 2017, at 3:01 PM, Justin Amash wrote:

Over the last seven years, Republicans have promised to repeal Obamacare and cut spending. It is an absolute disgrace that we have failed to do so.

Justin,

Yes, it's a disgrace, but it's completely predictable and expected by people like me.
I'm cheering for you and your Liberty Caucus, but I won't send dollars. History shows what a waste it is to try fixing politics with politics.

Does that sound cynical? I prefer to think of it as realistic. The build-up in culture of the faith in central government has taken thousands of years to get to this sad state. You aren't going to change hardcore cultural attitudes by changing some laws or gaining political power for the libertarian movement. The change we need will be much more glacial than that.

People were taught as children to trust, fear, and love big government, and they in turn are teaching those beliefs to their children, and their children's children. You might be an exception to the rule that both R and D republicans love to sound libertarian while they are campaigning, or while they are in a powerless minority position. I'll give you that. But, history shows how many socialist-leaning plans were enacted by powerful R or D majorities. Do I have to list the big-government programs started by Rs? The Prescription Drug would head the list, but I'm also sickened by the biggest pork-barrel big-government project of all: The Pentagon.

Republicans and Big Government | Mises Institute
https://mises.org/library/republicans-and-big-government

Republicans are even more socialist when it comes to the military and it's goal of a one-world hegemony. Same goes for the hardline Republican attitude toward so-called "law and order" drug laws and immigration restrictions. I keep an eye on the New American's "Freedom Index" and I see a great score for Justin Amash. So, you might be the exception that proves the rule? I can wish, but I can't send you money in good conscience.

Thanks for your dedication to the principles of liberty, as far as that goes.
Best Regards,
Rick Dutkiewicz
Allegan, Michigan

PS - Support Individual Liberty and Responsibility: Walk Away!

MInimum Wage Nightmare

I just heard on the news this morning (accidentally while looking for today's weather), that California's politicians approved a $15 per hour minimum wage. They call it "economic justice". I call it "economic illiteracy". California politicians say they want to "be an example to the rest of the nation". OMG help us!

This is a sad example of "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen", which the great economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote about over a hundred years ago. The benefit to those who get those $15 per hour jobs is highly visible and highly touted in the Political Theater. What remains invisible and are all the jobs that are lost when companies have to cut the bottom-end and entry-level jobs in order to pay the raised wages. What is not seen are the entry level jobs and new small business that simply never get started because labor costs are too high. 


What is hidden from view is the fact that higher labor costs force companies to automate much of their entry-level jobs that formerly were a step up for many of the most needy in our society. The automation we encounter at gas pumps and grocery store check-outs is a direct result of minimum wage laws. When government uses force to impose higher wage prices on business, owners and managers look for ways to cut costs. Automation is one way to cut labor costs. Minimum wage means jobs will be cut. The other invisible cost is the necessary increase in end prices to consumers - that mostly hurts those who can least afford it - the elderly, the disabled, and the poor.


And we sill haven't learned. Liberals haven't learned. Conservatives haven't learned. 
The Left claims to care about the poor and downtrodden and "economic justice". Yet they mostly care about what LOOKS like a good idea. Never mind that minimum wage laws hurt the most poor and the most helpless in society. Leftists wring their hands over the growing gap between the 1% and the 99%, yet minimum wage laws create and feed that unnatural divide between the haves and have-nots, a divide which the free market could NEVER create on its own.


The Right claims to be in favor of limited government and free markets. But, they contradict that principle by their belief in the need for a "mixed" or "controlled" economy. The minimum wage laws expand the power of Big Brother, and enable more and more regulations to be piled on top of the small businesses that the Right Wing claims to support.


Sorry folks, you can't make the world better with force.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/01/walter-e-williams/bunch-liars-minimum-wage/

Heat Death of the Universe? I wouldn't bet on it.

I just read the New Scientist article "When will the universe end? Not for at least 2.8 billion years".

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2078851-when-will-the-universe-end-not-for-at-least-2-8-billion-years/?cmpid=NLC%7CNSNS%7C2016-0303-GLOB&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNSAL

The article is a "Reader's Digest" adaptation (I like to say "short-attention-span version") of a paper that can be found in the General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology section of the Cornell University Library, "Observational support for approaching cosmic doomsday".

http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.06211v1

I encourage everyone to take a quick scan of that paper. It shows how many of these popular woo-woo science articles come from conclusions drawn from a study of groups of models. Groups of models that are based on mathematical conjectures built upon the assumptions of The Big Bang narrative; a reality born of an immense explosion caused by "random fluctuations", followed by an "Inflationary Period", continuing with an "Expanding Universe" which consists of a 4-or-more-dimensional space/time "fabric", populated mostly by dark matter and dark energy, along with a little baryonic matter which is no more than a sub-atomic particles that pop in and out of existence at the quantum level, held together by fields of attractive force. Isn't that the overall picture we are asked to accept?

Drawing heavily on Bayesian probability theory, this paper brings together a group of cosmological models and draws conclusions after assigning probability values to each specific model. But, but, ... 

The very idea of "heat death" contradicts the law of conservation of matter and just about every other "law of nature" that we can articulate.

That's why scientists who discuss black holes, big bangs, quantum randomness, dark matter & dark energy, string theories, multi-universes, etc. always have to say "this is where the laws of physics break down". Oh really?

The ridiculousness of this kind of thinking is paralleled in many parts of modern cosmology (and religion of course). Einstein explained gravity with the idea of "gravity wells" created by the curvature of space. A more massive object attracts a smaller object because it bends the space/time "fabric" downward to create a 3-dimensional "well" that the smaller object is sucked "down" into. How is that not explaining gravity with gravity? Your doctor might be very smart, but if you hear him say, "your skin is inflamed because you have Inflamed Skin Syndrome", you better ask some more questions.  

You haven't explained anything if you use a word or concept to define itself. It's the old "tortoises all the way down" fantasy. You think you are being logical because of all your beautiful mathematical formulae scribbled across multiple chalkboards, but you are kidding yourself. Just because you can make great observations and calculations, that doesn't mean you have a grasp of reality. Ptolemy proved that you can have a beautifully complex and even largely workable model of reality that is completely wrong. His beautiful conceptualization was just a house of cards waiting to fall as soon as reality tapped him on the shoulder.

Mathematics (along with its study of statistical logic and probability theory) only becomes useful when your terms can be correlated to matter or the motion of matter. When you use a "random" variable in your equation, that doesn't translate to a "causeless" event in reality. When your equation puts out negative numbers or irrational numbers, it's a good hint that you are no longer correlating to real matter or motion. For example, when I have 40 apples in a basket, and I subtract 40 apples, the answer to that simple arithmetic is Zero. But, just because the 40 apples were real and the motion of removing the 40 apples was real, that doesn't mean that there is such a thing as "zero apples". Zero is a very useful concept, but it is not a real thing or action.

When physicists take real observations of matter and motion, and put them together to create a mathematical model that results in "heat death", that doesn't mean "heat death" has to be a real thing or a possible event.

What ingredients go into these "Heat Death" computer models? Models that predict events that will happen billions and billions of years from now, and that will encompass the entire Big Bang universe? 

Each model recipe includes:

• 2 cups Empirical Data (finely diced with plus and minus margins of errors)

• 1 bunch of statistical probability formulae (to taste)

• 1/2 cup crumbled assumptions (the more inner contradictions, the better)

• 2 Tablespoons (heaping) of random fluctuations

• Grease the pan with "a family of cosmological models featuring future singularities".

• Lightly flour the pan with your choice of statistical probability philosophy.

• Serve cold to friends hungry for reinforcement of their assumptions of indeterminism and finity.

"Does probability measure the real, physical tendency of something to occur or is it a measure of how strongly one believes it will occur?"

What Did We Learn From The Revolutionary War?

The upcoming 4th of July holiday makes me relate our current problems to those "days of yore". What about today's conflict over immigration? What about the insistence by R's and D's alike that we need a "mixed" marketplace? Does top-down regulation and control deliver on its promises? Or, like libertarians like to say, does every government program exacerbate the problem it claims to be curing?

The Revolutionary War was fought in part because of all the trade restrictions that England was heaping on the colonies. There were lots of restrictions, fees, taxes, and regulations that were in place to stop newcomers from starting up new businesses. This mercantilist mentality made sense to many people, because they thought that newcomers were going to hurt the businesses that they had grown accustomed to. The restrictions not only hurt new businesses, the restrictions also hurt consumers the way any monopoly hurts consumers; prices and shortages increased while quality declined. Also, the burden on creativity kept new inventions and innovations out of the marketplace. . . All in the name of benefitting the existing businesses.

There are so many parallels we can draw between these restrictions on newcomers in businesses and restrictions on newcomers we call "immigrants". Restrictions on immigration are just another form of welfare. These restrictions benefit the existing populace. In effect, this creates a monopoly that raises prices and dampens creativity in the marketplace. Never mind that the marketplace we're talking about is what we call "the US population"; we are shooting ourselves in the foot by creating a monopoly on "citizenship" for the current residents of the US.

For every one privileged person who is "protected" and "supported" by immigration or business restrictions and regulations, there are hundreds and thousands of people who are being hurt by such an enforced monopoly. Taxes are raised to support these laws, politicians get expanded powers, freedoms are jeopardized, busybody neighbors spy on neighbors, new businesses are stifled, prices are pushed up, the variety of goods and services is limited, creative market solutions and innovations are smothered, and on and on. It's what government does to everything it touches; the benefits are visible, while most of the costs are invisible. When future prosperity and happiness are thwarted, you don't see a crater in the ground where that future was going to sprout.

"Since no one but you can know what's best for you, government control can't make your life better." Harry Browne

Cosmology, the Lab, the Church, the State

Last year (2014) the headlines in every hodunk town paper and website blared headlines about scientists finding "the most definitive proof ever" that their Big Bang theories are on the right track. Turns out the "evidence" was nothing but mis-readings from interstellar dust.

Funny that there aren't any headlines with a retraction of last year's B.S.

One little article has snuck out there because someone leaked the news that scientists wanted to keep secret. 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26883-leak-suggests-big-bang-find-was-a-dusty-mistake.html#.VMzXJt3AOiF

States keep taking our dollars and pumping billions into useless research to support the "Standard Model" of the very large and the very small. They spend our money propping up "The Big Bang" with mathematical models but zero good evidence. They also blow billions on the "Standard Model" of the extremely small. Particle Colliders are searching for the "Higgs Boson", a.k.a., "God Particle" which again is supported by imaginative mathematics, but no good evidence. In fact, the evidence (and common sense, ... and logic) flies in the face of everything modern mythologists have to say about the extremes of small and large in this universe.

All of this confused thinking by very intelligent minds is caused by the belief in a finite universe. In other words, a universe that has a beginning and an ending, in both time and space. Because humans are justifiably uncomfortable not seeing the end of something, academic "leaders" claim to find the edge of the universe or the smallest particle. But every time we build a better telescope or electron microscope, we find that the universe extends beyond the claimed limits found by our old technology. 

That's gone on for so long that now they need a newer fuzzier idea to claim that the universe dances to the latest human ideas; They say that the Big Bang "created" not just matter, but time and space, and there was no time or space before the Big Bang. The universe is expanding not so much like an explosion, but like a balloon. And our 3D universe is comparable to the 2D universe of the balloon's surface as it expands. In the small realm, they now have Quantum Physics that also goes beyond matter, with "random field fluctuations" said to "create" particles as they pop in and out of existence. All of this violates the first law of Physics; Matter and Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So then they say, "in our very large and very small observations, the laws of physics break down". WTF? Well then don't pretend to be following any f-ing rules. When you find a paradox, it's nature's way of telling you to go back and check your premises.

It's an idea worthy of the strangest religious fantasy. Just as in the religious churches, anyone standing outside of the church of science is told that they can't understand the complex and "beautiful mathematics" that prove all of these ideas. "It's a beautiful mystery." Just believe us and send money. 

Just like the state does not follow it's own rules, the Constitution, and the church has to constantly reinterpret it's own rulebook, the Bible, scientists who hypothesize about the very nature of the universe have to keep rewriting their rule book. A sane person quits the game when the rules are constantly changed by those who want our money.

Something smells fishy, and it needs to be ridiculed with humor more than argument.

▶ George Carlin on God and Politics - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSS5oTM_YGQ

As an old saying goes, "the wounded deer jumps highest". 

Likewise in the plant world; the sickly or damaged plant goes to seed earlier than the healthy plants.

Sometimes when something is dying it has a burst of energy as a last-ditch attempt at life.

I say that what we are seeing in the burst of activity of states, churches, and cosmology is actually their death throes.

Our great-great-grandchildren are gonna see a fantastic New Enlightenment of peace, creativity, sanity, technology, natural health and prosperity,

... as long as these myths don't take the human race with them as they flail about dying.

Organized Religions and "Literal" Bible Translations

Even though I am a-religious as much as I am a-political, that doesn't mean I am not well-read on the subject. I sometimes have to explain things about the religion I was taught for my first twenty years on the planet. Non-Catholics think that their doctrines and practices are better aligned with the "literal" bible. Although I don't go shooting my mouth off unless provoked, I have plenty to say to my good protestant friends.

Catholics have plenty of well-thought-out and long-debated biblical as well as traditional reasons for everything that they do, think, and believe. That said, I made the hard moral choice of deserting the Catholic church around the age of 22. I didn't do that because I thought I had all the answers; I just knew that organized religion's answers were wrong. Wrong in the sense that the Bible was written in a mystical and allegorical form, and all modern churches (unlike the original varied Christian groups) interpret the Bible like a bunch of lawyers. That's not what I call "Love". And if God is Love, then there's something extremely wrong with making legalistic claims concerning what is "biblical" or "non-biblical". 

Love is flexible, humble, tolerant, energetic, patient, creative, and kind. When apologists claim that "yes, God has perfect love, but he also has perfect justice", ... that's just an excuse for their own malice, intolerance, and laziness. When perfect justice is tempered with perfect love, you get perfect mercy. That's perfectly obvious to anyone humble enough to stop acting like a lawyer and politician. Politics is lazy and uncreative. Love is always active and on-the-ball.

The big "evil" that Protestants condemn and hate Catholics for is the Catholic acceptance of tradition as a guide to interpreting their practices and beliefs. Non Catholics also follow their own traditions in bible interpretations and practices, but they claim that they are not guided at all by tradition. Catholics are just more honest, that's all. Martin Luther dumped a few of the Roman traditions and started down a different path, but a path filled with "tradition" nonetheless. Let's call it what it is.

Protestants claim a "literal" interpretation of the Bible. That is shown to be a lie when even "experts" within the same denomination (including within the Catholic church) disagree strongly on what the "literal" words say and mean, and what the doctrine and practices ought to be. That's why Christian churches keep splitting off even to this very day. We have a church in Allegan that branched off from the CCC church about fifteen years ago. 

Our neighbor city of Holland has a rich history of splits. I read somewhere that after Van Raalte established the Reformed Church of Holland, people kept splitting away and moving inland. That's why the little inland towns of Zeeland, Drenthe, Vriesland, Hamilton, Byron Center, Borculo, Blendon, Jamestown, etc., all have off-shoots of the original Holland church. They didn't change the original Holland denomination name to "First Reformed" until all these other 2nd, 3rd, and 4th church groups split off over arguments about what the "literal" Bible meant. Maybe it means different things to different people. Duh? And maybe that's okay.

If you ever studied a language, you know that there is no such thing as "literal", especially in ancient languages. If God wanted to make his message clear with a miracle to keep the Bible pure over years of copying and translating, why couldn't God simply send his message by a single e-mail or letter to each human being on the planet? It's not any more far-fetched than the immense miracle it would take to keep the Bible books "true" and "literal". And that obviously hasn't worked well, given the historical and ongoing splits within Christianity.

Everyone else's belief is labelled "heresy". Every single thing that Protestants and Catholics believe now was once a heresy; the Redemption, Communion, Jesus as the Son of God, Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus as a physical being, the Trinity with the idea that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are the same "substance", Hell as a place for more than just the fallen angels, ... and on and on. Hundreds of details of Bible translation have been the subject of constant hatred and killing over the years. And it continues today.

1000's of soldiers who died to keep me free!

My sister who has a soldier son wrote in an e-mail, "1000's of soldiers who died to keep me free!"

I have no wish to argue with a mom who worries about her son's safety as he does the politicians' dirty work. So, I won't reply directly. I'll put my reply here, where hardly anyone will ever see it.

I have this to say about those thousands of soldiers.

I wonder if you can explain how soldiers dying keeps you free?

It would help me to hear what you think, because I don't understand that common saying.

I know we're taught that in school, but the more I study history, the more I find out that we were lied into almost every war.

So, maybe American soldiers have died in vain repeatedly, but that thought is too terrible to bear. 

So, maybe we need to say, "they died for our freedom" to sooth our wounded consciences.

I'm not saying that I know anything. I'm just suspicious when I'm told to believe something without explanation that makes moral sense.

I'm just being curious, because I've searched and searched for a good answer to this sad question. I care about moral truth, not the lies coming from the mouths of millionaire politicians. Voting gives creeps in D.C. the "mandate" to dream up more and more battlefields where they can send our kids into harms way. And cheer-leading chants like "they died for our freedom" keep people coming back and flipping those levers in the voting booth. A never-ending cycle that feeds on young soldiers, thanks to our gullibility.

What good did the Iraq war do? For one thing, of interest to a Catholic; there was a Catholic presence in Iraq under the old regime, but now the Shia have driven out all Christian groups. What good is the Afghan war doing? And Pakistan and Syria and now we're supposed to fear and hate the Russians once again. Many US politicians would love to start a war with Iran, a country that hasn't attacked anyone else in over 200 years.

I hate seeing flags at half-staff and I'm sick of seeing that symbol of wasted young lives. I cry at the sight.

It makes me sad, angry, but most of all confused. I think that war will not end until politics ends. Just my dream.

I wonder what lies our young soldiers are being told nowadays, because there are always lies behind the scenes.

We don't find out the truth until many years later.

I'm sorry if this is a touchy question. But I don't know the answer. 

Thanks for listening,

Rick

PS - It's interesting and sad to read Major General Smedley Butler's 1930 essay "War Is A Racket".

He was the most highly decorated US soldier ever at the time of his retirement. I think he might have something valuable to say.

His suggestions included that war financiers should be conscripted to fight in the front lines, with the young boys. He also suggested that boys on the front line be included in the decision-making process for choosing battle strategy. And, he suggested that the US military never be allowed more than 200 miles from the US coastline, so that the military can only be used for defensive purposes.

Excerpt: "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Politics is a Barnacle on our Ship of Progress

After I made some anti-political statement on e-mail, I got a reply from a friend. He said, "Doogie for President, Congress and Senate!" 
I answered: 

Thanks, but no thanks. The best we can do is ignore politics and spend our energy working, studying, and playing with our close family & friends. That's what matters. That's what is the answer.
People always ask, "okay, I agree government is evil and we need to get back to the free market, but HOW?" The answer is, "it's a multi-generational project". We have to build a better tomorrow through our children.

Once a majority (or even a decent-sized minority) of humankind recognizes a mistake, whether moral or practical, it does not and can not go back.
No one will ever again believe that the world is flat (I'm speaking of sane people and the Western world that came out of the Enlightenment).
No one will ever again be able to say "it is proper that a wife obeys every command of her husband, and he should beat her if she disobeys".
No one will ever again treat children as property to be disposed of.
 No craftsman will ever again think that it's smart to beat their apprentice about the ears for getting something wrong.

We're only a couple hundred years into these kinds of ideas. The Enlightenment was horribly crushed by the World Wars. We are just now beginning to see the light again. Barely.

No teacher will ever again try to beat or "spank" knowledge into a kid. The reward / punishment model of child-rearing and education may work okay for training dogs, but we need a "love and intelligence" model for dealing with children. We're barely getting started on that idea.

No one will ever again proclaim that human beings can be bought and sold as property, like cattle. We're still working on that as well; we may not have chattel slavery any more, but taxpayers are "50% slave" because our labor and property gets syphoned off to the warfare / welfare redistributionist state. 

These things might still happen, but no one will do it openly. No one will argue for the legitimacy of these wrong-headed ideas.

Once humankind has a "big realization" and starts to discuss it and write books about it, you can figure another couple centuries before the idea spreads throughout the population. So, Laissez Faire ideas (pro-property and anti-coercion) started in 18th century Europe, and Divine Right of Kings was soon thrown in the dustbin of history. But the idea is moving forward in fits and starts. 3 steps forward, 2 steps backward - because so many people are benefitting from the idea of "we need a powerful authoritarian central hierarchy to protect us from thugs on the street and greedy bastards in business". So, we create the world's biggest mafia to protect us from the mafia.

This new idea of a society shaped not by central planners, but by free individuals trading ideas, products, and services has caught fire in some intellectual circles (see here), and is very slowly moving into the general population. (Check out this free mp3 book, "The Market For Liberty" written by a husband & wife team. Very cool.) It will be another two or three generations before the idea will take hold, and then people will look back at our governments and just shake their heads and say, "how could anyone have believed such things, couldn't they see how obviously wrong-headed this idea was"?

So, we progress very very slowly. It's not inevitable (as Marx theorized), but a few good people can move the ball forward. We have to stop sending our kids to the state schools. That's one primary step. Teach our children well. Not with carrots and sticks. We need to learn how to recognize coercion everywhere. And point it out. Even within ourself. Government is a faulty, fake, lying relationship. And we need to get all of that type of fakeness out of our everyday relationships.
We need to stop using aggression, dominance, threats, and other coercion in our own lives, especially when it comes to children. The only reason people think government is "normal life" is that they grow up immersed in a sea of coercion and dominance.

Once the world brings forth a generation where most kids are raised with love and intelligence, these kids will grow into adults who do not recognize any dominant social structures like states or gangs. They will trade ideas, goods, and services in a free and non-violent marketplace. Society's "leaders" will be those who have earned respect by being the best and the brightest. We will vote for these "leaders" by purchasing their ideas, products, and services. These leaders of art, industry, and science will write books and give lectures to spread their ideas and opinions, not club people over the head and put them in prison.

Humankind won't be perfect. The world won't be a utopia. But we will be finished with "opinions at the point of the gun". And we will never look back.

Thanks for listening,
Rick Doogie

"The place to improve the world is in one's own heart and head and hands." Robert M. Pirsig
 The Story of Your Enslavement - YouTube

Why I am a Voluntaryist

Voluntaryists see all the stupidity of politics on both right and left, but they don't feel the need to hate their neighbors and family for their political beliefs. We see the deeper roots of the problem, embedded in world-wide cultural memes. That doesn't absolve anyone of blame for supporting the blood-bath of statism, but we're not interested in assigning guilt to individuals. We're interested in finding solutions we can implement within our circle of influence (not in Lansing or D.C.) In short, "we have met the enemy, and he is us". We can't change the problems of religion and politics without realizing that those things are just effects caused by much more deeply-rooted causes within human culture itself. Culture transmits many truths and falsehoods to each successive generation. The core problem is that culture transmits big ugly lies disguised as sacred unquestionable truths. We are taught by culture that we cannot question anyone's culture. How convenient.

You can't change the memes of culture by waving signs in the street, putting bumper stickers on your car, or writing your congressman. It's much more difficult and intimate than that; you have to change yourself and your small circle of friends who have ears to hear and eyes to see. It's like turning an ocean liner; a small turn of the wheel does a lot in the long run, but yanking the wheel does nothing but cause damage and lock things up. People's opinions are not changed by throwing tons of facts at them. I'm sure you've seen that. Throwing up mountains of facts to oppose someone's political or religious belief system often polarizes and strengthens that person's resolve to hold fast to their assumptions.
Voluntaryists see a day when the social safety net will be vastly improved by getting it out of the hands of politicians who suffer almost no consequences for their stupidity and greed. Voluntaryists also work for the day when there can be no 1% hoarding wealth, because only the state allows this hoarding to go on. It is the politically well-connected who can hoard wealth because their profits are protected from the consequences of stupid and greedy decisions.

For example; Voluntaryists oppose government-enforced copyright and patent laws. Shocking, I know, ... but there are good arguments. We oppose trademark or packaging fraud, and that would surely be prevented much more effectively in non-political courts. But it's no crime to take someone's idea and improve on it. Ideas are not property. Most of the biggest advances in humankind have occurred in times and places where there were no such laws protecting amorphous "intellectual property". (As a result, you can get all kinds of great Voluntaryist literature online for free.)

Profits are neither a good thing or a bad thing. Just as greed is neither a good or bad thing. They are only bad when "corporate law" protects them from liability and loss for doing stupid and evil things. Profits and greed shielded by gov't laws are what drive the US wars which have killed 30 million people since WWII ended. Profits and greed shielded by gov't laws are what cause the bulk of environmental damage. Profits shielded by gov't laws are what cause the super rich to get richer and the middle class to get poorer. Not that there would be no rich people without gov't; it would just be a lot more challenging to be super rich in a free society. Because you would have to compete to provide actual goods and services to the public; there would be no cushy government contracts for military adventurism overseas and political pork-barrel programs at home.

The big mistake of those on the Political Left is that they think profits are evil in and of themselves, and that is proved wrong by our daily experience. It isn't profits that cause evil, what enables evil is profits tied to gov't immunity from loss or prosecution. Corporations are evil only because gov't fiat makes the owners, management, and stockholders NOT liable for damages and losses. They reap profits when all goes well, but only the corporation loses money when things go bad. No politician or corporate stockholder loses his house when he hurts people with his mistakes or greed. They are protected from losing personal assets, and that's what is wrong with politics and greed getting in bed together.

You see the most radical example of this when Lockheed Martin stockholders and management enjoy huge profits while 20-year-olds get maimed and killed overseas. And there you have the problem with those on the Political Right; they claim to be all about families and morality, but they support the military-industrial complex which rips families apart and makes morality impossible. And they complain about gay marriage "wrecking the family". They are knee-deep in the blood of innocents. Although, Obama has also overseen the death of innocent people every day since he was in office, all to support the corporations and bankers who helped put him in office.

If We Get Rid of Government, Will Something More Evil Arise? Pt 1

My son asked me this question, so I tried to answer as briefly as I could. So much for brevity.

You asked one of the ultimate questions about a stateless society. I'm impressed that you didn't go to the more mundane fears that come up when someone brings up the possibility of running society without top-down government; Who would make the roads? Who would take care of the poor? Who would force kids to go to school? What if a foreign army attacks us? Who will protect us from big rich greedy corporations? How could there ever be big cool projects like the International Space Station? What about old people who didn't save for their retirement? How would our property be protected from criminals? What about people without health insurance? Who would run the court system? What about the criminally insane or complete sociopaths?

The easy answer to all those questions is "these things are done by working and caring people, and they will be done with or without government to supposedly organize us". But, more details answers are at websites like The Anarchist Alternative and Libertarianism. My favorite come-back to those questions is, "so, you are assuming that these problems are already being solved as best they can by today's government"?

So kudos to you for asking a most intelligent question. The answer needs a bit of introduction, because you can approach the argument from various logical angles. Most break-room blather probably doesn't care much for the rules of logic, so I'd suggest avoiding that venue for asking questions or giving opinions.

Here's my introduction:
About 6 years ago, I stopped sending out e-mails every day to whoever I thought might be interested in the philosophy of freedom; how to make a better world for our kids and grandkids. I finally realized that people have their life attitude set pretty much in stone by the time they are in their early twenties. Despite all the fantasy stories in movies and books where some evil Scrooge has a life-altering event, that type of personality change is very rare. If someone is not asking skeptical questions about the state-run society already, no amount of e-mails from me are gonna get that person to become curious. People don't usually change their personality or basic attitude toward life because of what happens to them or what facts are presented to them. People only change if they already have an inner skepticism and curiosity.

Curiosity and skepticism are qualities that you are born with, but our culture does its best to trample down child-like curiosity which demands "why"? And "says who"? Parents kill children's curiosity every time they say, "because I said so" or "because God made it that way". In school, kids are taught to memorized the "correct" answers. They are taught What to think, not How to think. Memorization is rewarded, not creativity.

It is not in our culture's best interest to have lots of skeptical questions flying around, demanding proof of society's dictated moral laws; "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society". "Honor your father and mother". "The policeman is your friend". "We can agree to disagree". "Follow the chain of command". "Politicians are servants of the people". "Voting is a duty and a privilege". "Everyone has a right to their opinion". "We all have an evil side to us". "Government is a necessary evil". "Everything happens for a reason". "There's a thin line between love and hate". "If God did not exist, we would have to invent him". "Many have died so that we can be free". "Ethics are different in different cultures and countries". "Respect your elders".

Some of our cultural dictates are wearing thin; "Children should be seen and not heard". "A woman's place is in the home". "Spare the rod, spoil the child". "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord". "Without religion, there can be no morality". "Slaves, obey your masters".

So there is hope. We can change the world for our great-grandchildren and their families. But, it's like steering an ocean liner. You can reef on the steering wheel and it seems like you're getting nowhere. But the change will happen - very slowly. So, we do the right thing. Not for us, but for the future. We point out the made-up answers and dare to call them "ridiculous".

The biggest thing we can do to make the future world a little happier for our kids and grandkids is to teach them to question everything. The more hard-wired the "truth" seems, the more it needs to be questioned with a careful and skeptical eye. We spend too much time feeding facts to our kids, and not enough time encouraging them to say, "why is that like that?" What causes that"? "Who discovered that fact, and how did they figure that out?"

And, another good point to teach our kids (and remind ourselves and our friends) is that "emotions are important, but emotions are not arguments". Another good starting point is to keep in mind what the 9/11 Truthers, UFOlogists, and Psychic Believers never acknowledge: Evidence is not Proof. One or two strange and suspicious pieces of evidence do not prove anything. Evidence has to be rigorous, and must be high in quantity and quality. Evidence has to be examined and accumulated before it can be said to support "proof". Proof is based on evidence, but that evidence has to be "Good and Plenty".

One more thing that makes for idiotic arguments in the break room; people don't define their words. So, they end up arguing past each other. They are talking about two different things. Any talk about religion or politics is subject to this pitfall. If we talk politics or religion, let's define "god" or "spirit". Let's define "government" or "representative". Let's define "good" and "evil".

So, to sum up part one of my answer to your simple question:

1. I no longer think I can change the world by presenting people with the facts of the matter as I see them.

2. There is a tendency for cultures to resist questions about teachings that are handed down from generation to generation.

3. We are born with curiosity, and we can make the world better by sheltering our children from the social pressure to muffle their inner curiosity, and by reawakening our own curiosity. Curiosity means "no made-up answers like religion and politics gives us".

4. We can and do affect cultural change, but it is very very slow. It's a multi-generational project. The "majority" is never where creative new ideas come from. Cultural and scientific revolutions always are started by very small but dedicated minorities.

5. We can't find the truth of anything by thinking with our emotions. Very few people recognize that their thinking is blocked by emotional baggage from the years of repetitive lessons our culture slams into our brains as we grow up. (In stories and movies, we always know who the bad and good guys are; in real life it's not so easy to recognize good and evil. But it's ideas that count, not who is the villain of the week.)

Spanking Controversy Pt III - The Research Is In

Twenty years ago, there might have still been grounds for debating the pros and cons of spanking. Now the research is in, the brain scans of adults who were spanked can be compared to brain scans of those who were not spanked. You can find all of this stuff online. It's pretty amazing.

The main arguments against these findings can be found on religious forums, where people always bring up the bible quote, "spare the rod, spoil the child". I wonder why they don't use the bible quote that says, "If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, ... then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders ... They shall say to the elders of his town, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us.' Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death."

We see what the Old Testament says, now let's see what research and observation says:

"Brain scans show structural and biochemical changes that affect social behavior:

• Cell death in the anterior cingulate gyrus affects a child's ability to moderate fear and to empathise. Changes in the brain's pathways affect a child's ability to manage stress and being more prone to being impulsive, aggressive and/or anxious. Long term changes to the adrenaline systems in the brain affect the ability to think clearly. Impairment in the brain stem has been linked to ADHD, depression and impaired attention. It also leads to more aggression and irritability. 

• decrease in size of the corpus callosum causing manic shifts in mood states

• reduced amygdala and hippocampus resulting in depression, irritability and hostility; and poor memory function

• affects the GABA system making a child feel unsafe and constantly living in a state of alarm"

Spanking inflicts damage that causes precisely what spanking claims to prevent.

"I was raised with spanking, and I turned out fine". So everyone says flippantly.

But, I sometimes wonder if I might have been an even better person without that spanking and dominance.

What if I was treated in childhood as the rational, curious, and peaceful human being I've always been?

The main thing I recall about getting spanked is my bitterness about the unfairness of being spanked.

I most vividly recall the few times when I was spanked or punished unfairly. That made the biggest impression on me.

The unfairness of lashing out. The meaninglessness of it. The loss of respect it gave me for adults in general.

"Violence (abusive words, threats of violence, or even withdrawal of affection in the form of "time outs") inflicted by their closest relatives and caretakers has a long-lasting and horrifying effect. These children grow up with the idea that, when another person's behavior is displeasing to them, violent acts or words against that person are appropriate ways to deal with feelings of displeasure. In short, members of each adult generation tend to reproduce in their interpersonal relationships, the violence which they experienced in their childhood."

"Aggressive children often become aggressive adults, who often produce more aggressive children, in a cycle that endures generation after generation.

Corporal punishment always figures prominently in the roots of adolescent and adult aggressiveness, especially in those manifestations that take anti-social form, such as delinquency and criminality."

"Mistreatment of children, beginning at infancy, perpetrated by parents and other primary caregivers, is what infects children with the virus of violence.

In much the same way that it interferes with the bonding between child and parent, it stunts the child's ability to become socially integrated with the larger law-abiding community. It handicaps the child with a lifetime supply of anger. It makes every future irritation seem a mortal attack,

every delay of gratification a personal insult. It models for the child no essential problem-solving skills, but instead, selfishness, aggression, rage, tyranny. It makes escape by means of alcohol and drugs appear an option irresistible to many. The worse, and the earlier the mistreatment, the more severe the outcome."

These are all quotes from psychologists who have done work researching the roots of criminal violent behavior.

The complaint will be that these doctors are mostly talking about severely abused children, and that "light spanking" is not the same thing. 

But, "light spanking" or "heavy spanking" is only a difference in degree, not a difference in type. Like, we're not talking about full-blown cancer, it's okay to have just a little bit of cancer. A little bit of cancer doesn't really hurt that much.

My question is, "why not try love and reasoning"? 

There are all kinds of websites online that are dedicated to raising children without ANY violence or threats.

Peace & Love,

Rick

PS - There is a growing mountain of scientific evidence for avoiding all spanking, even so-called "paddling" or "swatting".

Lots of non-violent parenting groups out there.

Parent Effectiveness Training

Spanking Controversy Pt II

A pat on the butt is at least 4 things to a child;

1. Most importantly, it is a withdrawal of love or at least a threat of such withdrawal. 

That's a scary thing to a child whose life literally depends on primary care givers.

2. It is a threat of greater violence to come, if they don't blindly (obediently) follow the adult's wishes and whims.

3. It is a shutting down and discouragement of rational discussion. A lesson that frustration justifies force. A lesson that rational discourse and search for compromise is only useful up to the point when impatience calls for forceful "action".

4. It is a lesson that they don't need to learn their boundaries, because someone else will always be there to swat them when they go too far. They learn the opposite of self-control and empathy for others. By stopping wild behavior with irrational hitting, future wild behavior is reinforced. And they learn to self-attack instead of self-control. The seeds of self-hatred are sown.

Children should be taught to control their behavior using their own intelligence and judgment. Children should not be taught to "be obedient".  Obedience is a large part of what is wrong with the world.

I'd rather err on the side of being "too gentle" and "too reasonable" than making the mistake of teaching children that force and threats of force are acceptable options for settling disputes and misunderstandings.

I know the argument, "children are hard to reason with, so you have to use a bit of force for their own good and safety". Then why don't we give a little whack to a retarded person to get them to respond to our wishes or reasoning? For his own good. Why don't we use a little whack for grandma when she is acting a little crazy? For her own good. How about a little whack from your boss when you resist or hesitate to follow his confusing orders?

If it's proper and useful for you to swat a child to "get his attention", why don't we encourage kids to swat us when they want something and we won't listen? Why is it okay for us, but wrong for them? Kids get the message that we don't know we're sending: It's right for us because we're bigger, smarter, stronger, and richer than them. So, because kids get this lesson, they grow up and start to use force and manipulative bullying behavior as soon as they get bigger, smarter, stronger, and richer. 

Why, when kids are expressing frustration, anger, impatience, or disrespect - why is it okay for us to swat them instead of spending time figuring out the causes of their negative feelings? Why can't they "paddle" us when we are angry, frustrated, etc? If the argument is that we are responsible for the children and they are not responsible for us, that is so very correct. And that responsibility dictates that we act with all the intelligence, love, and respect we can muster. And when we are at our wits end we ought to blame ourselves, not the child. 

Children do not choose to have you as a parent, you are the one who chose to have a child. There is absolutely no ground to stand on when culture says, "children should honor and love their parents". Baloney. You can't command true love and respect. Like anyone else, parents have to earn love and respect. The reasonable and moral rule is the exact opposite of what is commonly taught. Parents have an obligation to love, respect, and care for their children until the age when they can take care of themselves. Because the parents chose the child, the child did not choose the parents. Parents have no excuse that they are "too tired" or "too busy" to learn how to give proper care and love to their children. Kids are busy too. They are busy learning about life. What's more important, your trip to the grocery store, your phone call conversation, ... or your child's healthy mental development? You owe your child your time and patience, not the other way around. I repeat; you chose them, they didn't choose you.

"I don't have time to use logic and love, it's easier to give a quick little swat". This is weird reasoning. If you get to have the excuse that you are too busy, too tired, too distracted, etc., to take time to carefully figure out the root of a child's bad behavior, then you have no right blaming a child for anything they do. They also are tired, busy, distracted, ... If it's a good excuse for you, then why not for them? AND it's not their fault; it's your fault if they never were given the tools and training and EXAMPLE of how to act differently. 

It's barbaric to blame children for their lack of understanding and patience. You are responsible for everything they have learned, for better or worse (even if they learned it from cartoons, movies, daycare, school, or "popular culture").

Popular Culture is the last place to go for this kind of knowledge. Popular Culture is a purveyor of mistakes, lies, and made-up crap. (The biggest lie is that we ought to revere culture and never question the "wisdom" it passes down.) You have to see what actual evidence has been found and studied.

Emotional Physical Development Of Children Who Get Paddled

The ideas that I am encouraging here are inspired by Stefan Molyneux at FreeDomainRadio.com

Spanking Controversy Pt I

A friend of mine defended spanking on her Facebook page, so I had to reply.

She wrote back to me after I said, "all spanking is wrong, period".

okay I can tell your really serious about this and....maybe I shouldn't have said the word spanking, is swatting on the butt a spanking??guess it depends on one's definition..I think a swat when all else fails doesn't hurt and it gets my grandson's attention...

I replied:

Yes, I am serious about this. I doubt if any other topic is more serious. Wars, depressions, murders, rapes, all criminal behavior and social problems in the "adult" world stem from negative experiences in childhood. You look at a jerk in the bar or an idiot co-worker, you are seeing the scars of childhood. You look at wars and corporate greed, you are seeing the effect of a long causal chain that starts with the evils inflicted on children who grow up with dark shadows in their brains. 

When we look at ourselves and the times we disappoint ourselves, we are looking at our own scars from things we learned in childhood. NOT just things consciously taught and not just from parents, but from peers, teachers, baby-sitters, books, movies, and TV. It's a cultural meme that we are up against, and it's permanently etched on our brains. We need to raise a new generation that is free of the "might makes right" meme.

The Institute for Psychohistory

http://www.psychohistory.com/

The Psychohistory website examines the childhood experiences of evil tyrants and war-mongers throughout history. Guess what? From Stalin to Hitler to Pol Pot to Saddam Hussein, from the World Wars to the modern-day Mid-East wars, ... all have deep roots traced back to culturally-approved aggression towards children. We need to evolve beyond this horror.

I have no argument with the short-term "usefulness" of using a swat to get a kid's attention. We know that this works in the short run. But what are the long-term consequences? Are we teaching the child to be even more sneaky and evil? 

Are we teaching the child to swat other children who don't fill their desires? 

Are we teaching children that utility (convenience and usefulness) trumps morality?

Utilitarian arguments replacing moral arguments is how we get all kind of horrors and atrocities throughout history and throughout our present world.

If you read up on this, you'll find that the research numbers on adult violence rooted in childhood trauma DOES NOT find a distinct line between actual "beating" and "light paddling". The line is blurry. You're making a huge presumption to declare that light paddling doesn't hurt, when the research actually points in the other direction. Yes, children are more likely to grow into violent criminals if they experience more violent abuse at a younger age, but there is a fuzzy line dividing "light paddling" and "violent abuse".

If a swat doesn't hurt, why don't we use swats on our husbands, wives, friends, and co-workers? Is it because we can reason with adults? So, if a living creature has a problem with reasoning, we need to resort to swats? What do animal trainers say about swats? What about dealing with brain-damaged adults, or demented and forgetful oldsters? Should we hit them to "guide them" or "get their attention" when they are disobedient or troublesome?

You and I are in no position to have an opinion on this until we study into it quite deeply. I'm just getting started myself. I suggest that you read up on this, and trace the roots of this cultural attitude that says "swatting children is harmless". We also need to track down some good research that has studied into the long term effects of using force on children.

These same arguments have been going on for centuries. It used to be okay to slap or do whatever to someone of lower class. Slowly, we started to recognize that no person has any right to use any aggression against others, except when lives and property are directly threatened. First the lower classes had their rights recognized, then slaves, then women, and now we're working on recognizing children's rights. Funny "strange" that the most helpless humans are the last to be liberated and have culture recognize their right to be respected not threatened. "The husband by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction . . . in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children."

Spanking Leads To Child Aggression And Anxiety, Regardless Of Cultural Norm

10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Child | Ask Dr. Sears

Cities are Cesspools of Socialism?

I got a fiery reply to my offhand Facebook comment that "Cities are cesspools of socialism". I thought I would share my rejoinder.

I wasn't judging city people, I was judging city government. I'm a happy anarchist, looking forward to the day when humans live in a voluntary society based on non-violence, creativity, and free association. (Not that I think I'll see it in my lifetime, but maybe my children's children's children.) I don't put all city people in one basket, and I don't put all small town people in the same basket. There are great people no matter where you go. There also are nasty, brutish, bitter people in every city and every small town. There are opportunities in big cities that are unavailable in small towns, but there are opportunities in small towns that aren't available in big cities.

The US dollar is on the verge of hyper-inflation and possible meltdown. And cities will quickly become disaster areas when food service, water, sewage, trash service, police, fire, and electricity become unreliable because the politics and money that keep all of that running become unstable. I study economics, history, science, politics, and philosophy enough to know that the US empire cannot continue. The more politicians keep propping it up with wars, taxes, laws, cops, jails, guns, bombs, and debt, the harder it will fall. And state and city governments will fall as well. We won't be immune out here in the woods, but we're not totally dependent on government largesse, the way a city is. That's all I was talking about.

"I would prefer a socialistic approach to a capitalistic one, don't you concur?"

I prefer a sociable approach. And socialism is anti-social and violent. I prefer freedom. I don't like politicians pointing guns at my head or threatening to do so.

"After all, if we lived in a communist or socialist country, all of its citizens would be provided for. All would have gainful employment, shelter, food and clothing."

That's what the promise says, but history, logic, and morality say otherwise. I don't mind you living in a socialist society if you choose, but please let me choose to opt out. Socialism and communism are no problem until they use guns to force everyone to conform to their system.

"Instead we live in a capitalistic Republic where profits are put ahead of people."

The "capitalist republic" we live in is a fiction. Both of those words are filled with false premises. The word "republic" is a fiction because I supposedly have "representatives" but they are under no legal or contractual obligation to actually represent my wishes or needs. All government is a fiction in that way; We are obligated to the state, but the state is not obligated to us. The word "capitalist" is also a fiction, because Karl Marx misused the word when he coined it. All "capital" refers to is the tools you use to provide your product or service. So "capitalism" refers to a business which puts money from profits back into its tools and buildings in order to improve products and services. We don't live in a "capitalist" system. The right word is "mercantilism". Mercantilism is a system where politicians take money by force from some of the people and give it to their preferred big donor corporations. A mercantilist system syphons money from the less politically-connected "little guys" in order to fund fat cat politically well-connected donors.

My Political Roots

My political roots are anti-intervention and anti-big-central-government.

My old-school conservative parents gave me that attitude. But I took it to its simple and logical conclusions.

In studying history and politics, I finally found that you can't draw a line and say "this part of government is okay to have intervention and big centralized power, and this other part is not okay." You pull the string, and the whole ball of yarn comes undone. The more you look into the history of political meddling, the more you find out that everything the government does is NOT good for morality and NOT good for business. Even so-called "just" wars. Even well-intentioned programs like welfare, the park service, anti-drug laws, consumer protection laws, and public utility monopolies.

Warfare: I was taught the old-school conservative idea that trade was the best way to exert influence on foreign countries. The US should be beacon of freedom and prosperity that leads other nations by shining example, and not by threats and intimidation.

War should be a last resort, and for defense only.

Welfare: Same with domestic government programs;

The more the government can keep it's hands off voluntary human associations,

the more we will have maximum prosperity and benevolent social arrangements.

Welfare should be a last resort, a safety net for those in most dire need.

I found out that the Warfare/Welfare State excuses for foreign and domestic intervention as a "last resort" could be stretched and stretched, until just about anything goes as far as domestic meddling and foreign meddling by the US government.

Everything I ever studied about the history of these "last resorts" led to the conclusion that the "problems" which necessitated more warfare and more welfare were problems created by past government warfare and welfare. The small interventions always created more and more conflict, until the government jumped in, claiming that it was intervening as a last resort. Government always claims that it has no other option but to jump in and interfere. For the good of "the people" of course.

This all boils down to my favorite quote from the beloved Harry Browne, master of the libertarian soundbite; "The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, See, - if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk."