When Rights Are Wrong

The LGBTQ movement makes me, at once, angry and sad.

Angry because a relatively tiny demographic have virtually usurped a vital and broad discussion of human rights, as well as tried to normalize perversions that have no place in the public domain.

Sad because these poor people believe they have so little to offer the world that their entire estimate of self-worth is completely wrapped up in how and with whom they have sex.

Across the world, even now in the 21st century, there is a thriving trade in slaves, children are used as warriors and cheap labor, and huge numbers of women still aren't allowed basic freedoms many of us consider basic to existence.

Even as I write this paragraph, human beings are bought and sold for a variety of reasons in North Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Many Indonesian women are more or less sold across Asia as domestic servants, treated worse than the family dog, and frequently beaten to death with no consequences. Children are regularly used across Africa and Asia as cheap, disposable labor, while others are sold into sex slavery, a trade whose horrors are just now slowly coming to light. Women in many cultures still don't have the rights to travel, associate and speak - rights those in the West take for granted.

In other words, there is still a huge effort needed to bring every human being up to a very basic level of equality and enfranchisement in the common culture. Millions of human beings don't even have the luxury of wishing they had the most basic of rights, and the LGBTQ "community" has the gall to worry whether they can behave lewdly at the local Denny's or use any toilet they wish or force society to use dozens of ridiculous pronouns?

Meanwhile, the LGBTQ movement enjoys copious and luxurious rights, such as assembly and speech; assembly to brow beat the rest of us into accepting behavior that, in a polite and proprietary culture, is best left to the privacy of one's domain; speech to warp and torture the common language so as to avoid giving offence where none existed. They fail to realize, or worse, acknowledge the amazing and privileged life they enjoy. From the most profound premises of their arguments, their entire movement assumes having rights that millions of human beings can't even imagine having, much less using.

Here in Indonesia, gay men are arrested and publicly humiliated for engaging in homosexual activities. In many parts of the Middle East, men are put to death for the same. In many societies, just the suspicion of being homosexual can get a man shunned and excommunicated by society at large.

In the West, there are virtually no barriers to homosexuality. Gay men are just as acceptable as anyone else. They enjoy all the rights and benefits of any other citizen. They can publicly identify themselves as "gay" and most people shrug and move on to more interesting topics. The biggest complaint one hears from the LGBTQ "community" is perceived (or imagined) insults, and that is hardly a major concern when in other parts of the world one's life is on the line.

Every June, cities across the West host parades of the most vile and lewd behavior, while encouraging children to attend and be subject to the basest of human behavior, with virtually no consequences. Often times part or all of the proceedings are televised, so even those who don't attend are still subject to the cultural rot. These "gay pride" celebrations have even overshadowed what used to be Juneteenth, celebrating the end of slavery in the US.

In short, the LGBTQ movement has become institutionalized, with vast sums of money coming in the form of grants and donations. Those financial spigots are supporting entire populations to fight something that no longer exists - at least in the West - namely discrimination and disenfranchisement.

Instead of admitting victory, or better, putting their time and money to bringing basic rights to oppressed people elsewhere, the LGBTQ activists continue to manufacture more and more imaginary and manfactured "barriers" to justify the rivers of money flowing in - things like pronouns and non-gender toilets and the fantasy that a knife can change one's sex and the supposed "insult" that natural functions like breast-feeding babies damages psyches.

In order to protect this endless flow of "free" money, these groups must create and adopt new causes, and adapt their narratives to include ever more perceived wrongs. This is the primary reason the original LGB moniker has added a T and a Q, and seems destined to continue adding letters in the quest for more funding.

In other words, it's become a business and a source of income for thousands of otherwise unemployable social workers, social scientists, social justice warriors, and busy-body activists. The LGBTQ movement, like government science, must keep inventing new frontiers of in order to justify the pallets of money being delivered to them from public coffers.

It is no longer about equal rights, but about supporting scads of unjustifiable and otherwise useless payrolls and projects in societies where the original issues have all but disappeared.

The question still remains, though, why do I feel sad for these folks?

Imagine your life being so empty and without value that you base your entire weltanschauung on who you sleep with.

Imagine having no over-arching philosophy of politics, science, art, cosmology, religion, or humanity to give context to your existence, other than your next orgasm. Imagine having no other reason to live but to find your next sex partner and force everyone else to be OK with your choice. Imagine finding no greater injustices in an unjust world than to stop others from teasing you.

What a sad, pitiful existence.

In a world where most of us define ourselves by our beliefs and achievements, these sad people have nothing more to offer the world than to parade their private proclivities in public and defy the rest of us to say anything about it. What a miserable and empty existence that must be.

Imagine the disconnect and lack of maturity in an adult mind, where playing dress-up and exploring boundaries is still the focus of existence. This used to be considered mental illness.

There are two remedies for this situation that go hand-in-hand.

First, we must return to a culture that values not what we are by birth, but what we do for the greater benefit of society. That Michelangelo was probably gay is useless and uninteresting information. What he gave to our culture is astounding. We must return to praising the great achievements of individuals and encouraging more of it, instead of dragging the world into our bedrooms and forcing it to accept our foibles, hedonism and psychoses.

Second, we must cut off the flow of taxpayer money to EVERY cause or question someone with good grant-writing skills can think of. This includes not just useless social movements, but Big Science and avant guard "art" projects. If these things have any value to society, there will be ample investment from the private sector.

The shovel-fulls of government money have created enormous bloat in hundreds of empty efforts that produce nothing of value for the rest of us, but offer comfortable employment for those with degrees in social "sciences" or gender/racial "studies". If George Soros wants to keep throwing his fortune at these manipulative ventures, he is free to do so with his own money, but we must stanch the flow of funds from public treasuries, which amounts to little more than political favoritism and corruption.

You could cross-breed aardvarks with armadillos and sell the results as sex toys, for all I care. What you do behind your doors and on your property is completely and entirely your business - until it crosses the line of propriety and the public space. You may not engage in these activities with people who do not or cannot consent, and you may not do them if it impedes on the rights of others within the public sphere. Within your domain, you can use whatever pronoun and toilet you want, but out here in the real world, there are two pronouns and two toilets.

I resent being forced to participate in others' peccadilloes, either by being forcefully dragged into activities and dialogue I don't want to engage in, or by siphoning off tax money to support a bunch of useless "research," "activism" and "projects" - most especially if it is at the point of a gun.

If one wants society at large to leave one alone in one's imaginary world, then one must leave the rest of us alone to enjoy ours. If one is incapable of allowing others the courtesy of pursuing other interests than one's own, then one must suffer the push-back that invariably comes with it (note use of non-gender pronoun).

One must respect my boundaries, desires and rights within the confines of my property and associations. One must accept that not everyone can or wants to agree with one's every whim. One must realize and accept, like every child does growing up, that there are limits to behaviors in the public sphere, so that we can all participate in that realm in a polite and agreeable manner.

I promise to give you the same respect.

Begging For What's Yours

The US 7th Circuit Court recently issued a decision that LGBT folks were protected under Title VII of the Equal Rights Act of 1964 (ERA).  That's the law that is quoted on every job application in the US, where it says the employer does not discriminate based on color, creed, sex, et cetera ad nauseum.

There are so many things wrong here it will take a couple of your minutes to unpack it all.  So, grab a cuppa java and ride along.

First of all, this lawsuit and resulting decision by the court is a Statist's wet dream.  The fact that all these social sub-groups keep coming to the government, hats in hand, begging for their "rights" to be acknowledged is wrong on so many levels.

It is a complete repudiation of centuries of established Enlightenment philosophy.  Governments do not issue rights, they are a function of Nature and are as much a part of every human being as DNA and breathing.  It is not government's job to hand out rights, it is its job to protect them - or at least that was the idea back when Descarte, Kant, Locke, and Jefferson were pondering this topic.

In addition, laws are meant to apply equally to all people - or at least all citizens - without regard to any other factor or difference.  That these sad little minds on both sides of the argument felt the need to clarify whether existing laws applied to them means the concept of equal protection under the law has been completely wiped out of living memory.

I must admit that I have never understood the LGBT "movement".  It used to be that who or what one had sex with was a matter of personal privacy.  These poor, empty people are so devoid of any sense of achievement in their lives that the only distinguishing aspect of their public personas is their choice of bedmate.

Imagine being so lacking in personal achievement that you must make an issue out of your sex life.  They have no academic excellence, no social or philosophical distinctions, no meaningful contributions to the greater good, and frankly no children, that they must spend their entire lives making an issue out of their primary biological functions.  What next?  Equal rights for those who use toilets?

Frankly, I don't give a damn who or what they sleep with, as long as its consensual (meaning at least that all parties are over the age of majority and are fully informed) and I don't have to watch or participate if I so choose.  There would certainly never be a reason for me to be concerned about their sex lives if they didn't force all of us to acknowledge that they have one.  Hell, even the most ardent feminists and SJWs occasionally get bedded.

If I had an employee who was hanging rainbow flags all over the office and being truly obnoxious about their sexual orientation, I would fire them for disrupting the business environment.  The workplace is for work, the bedroom is for sexual gymnastics, and never the twain should cross.  Other than that, I only care about their job performance.

At its most benign level, this supposed "landmark" case showcases the degradation of the Western education system, which has failed to instill one of the most basic tenets of Western law - that we are all equal under the law regardless of any other consideration - and that rights are not handed out by government, but are inherited at the moment of conception (see previous articles on abortion and murder).

It is equally depressing to see that Western society has broken down into competing groups scrambling for government favors based on whatever criteria come to hand - such as with whom one chooses to exercise basic biological functions.  In a truly free and liberal society, such distinctions are meaningless.

In this case, both the court and the plaintiffs have degraded civilization just that little bit more, not because they won inclusion under the law, but because they believed they had to get permission from government to do so.

Ignorance on the part of the plaintiffs in this case is hardly excusable, but I place a greater burden of blame on the court, which did not clearly state that the Western legal tradition - at least since the Magna Carta - already protected all individuals equally as a foundational principle.

Yes, there are major societal issues at stake here, but at the level of the individual I feel sorry for the empty, meaningless lives whose sole claim to distinction is their orgasm.

Next time, we'll take on the completely absurd notion of "hate crime".  Stay tuned.

MiniTrue Strikes Again

If you are one of the three people in the educated world that have not yet read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, then you should probably drop everything you are doing and rush out to get a copy and curl up this weekend with a good bottle of single-malt scotch and put it in your brain.

It is not just to finally grok the true meaning of Big Brother, MiniTrue, Newspeak, IngSoc, and other now-cultural terms, but to send shivers of recognition down your spine as you see words written in 1949, can seem so prescient in 2016.

There are hundreds of reasons to read this book, but the one that has always remained foremost for me is the look at "free speech" and manipulation of language.

If you are not in the know, then the protagonist, Winston Smith, is employed at the Ministry of Truth (MiniTrue), where he spends his days modifying historical records and dictionary entries.  The ultimate goal of this exercise is to completely eliminate factual history and to reduce the common vocabulary to the point where it is completely impossible to express ideas that are contrary to the ruling elites' interests.

Having absorbed this book in high school, I have watched the world march unceasingly towards those very goals.  We call them "political correctness" and other euphemisms, but the concepts and the results are the same.

We are often treated to a certain group of left wing polemicists harping on "free speech," while simultaneously ridiculing anyone expressing ideas and concepts that are outside their carefully crafted narrative. For instance, we might hear Noam Chomsky wax philosphical about linguistics and the control of language (or through language), but turn right around and attackurn  someone promoting a boycott of Israel for the Palestinian attrocities.  This is a textbook example of Double Think - holding two diametrically opposed ideas at the same time and believing both of them with fervor.

The thing about free speech is that it involves the right of everyone to say anything they believe, and even to try and convince you of the value of their position.  To repeat - ANYONE to say ANYTHING they believe, no matter what the topic or viewpoint.

There have been multiple legal boundaries put up over the centuries since the Enlightenment.  The US Supreme Court ruled that free speech does not include the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater when there isn't one.  The reasoning was that to incite a panic for no reason that can lead to grievous bodily harm is not permitted.  This makes sense, until you expand it to mean that someone advocating revolution is also outside the protection of free speech, when in fact, it is that person's speech that is the most protected.

The thing is that free speech protects the presentation and argumentation of ideas and concepts.  If one person is free to present the argument that the Nazis committed a racial holocaust against a certain segment of society, then someone else is must be allowed to present the opposing view.  The two sides battle it out on the basis of evidence and persuasion, not on who can slam the door the hardest on the opposition.

In fact, in the above example, laws have been passed in a number of countries making it a crime to question the "mainstream" narrative of the Nazi holocaust.  To my mind, any argument that requires that extreme to protect it is weak on its face.  If, in fact, the entirety of the story were true in every detail, there would be no need to use the deadly force of law to protect it, as it would stand on its own merits.

Another example is the recent banning by Amazon of a book called Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.  The fact that the book had to be banned shows the weakness in the "mainstream" narrative and the fear on the part of the elite that their carefully woven fabric might be undone by pulling on the wrong strings.

At this point, some readers will accuse me of being a "conspiracy theorist," and I admit that I am open to reinterpretations of history.  It is a fact that history is created by conspiracies and that historical events and persons are open to new data.  Even in the "mainstream," history is being rewritten all the time.  A new discovery at CERN or the publication of Planned Parenthood videos allows the public to reconsider their understanding of things.  If respected researchers build documented arguments that turn common beliefs on their ears, I am all for a fair listen and reserve the right to change my own opinions based on that information if I so choose.

In other words, if I have to choose between a protected species and the survival of me and my family, the protected species loses.  End of story.  In the same way, if a protected story deeply affects the ability of me and my family to function because the narrative has come at a social price, then I am all for re-examining that story to ensure what I have been asked to give up is worth the price.  The Nazi holocaust being used to jail and shame people, Sandy Hook being used to limit my right to self-defense, 911 being used to rein in civil liberties, and religion being used to fence my right to reason mean that these things (and so much more) are open to review and criticism and revision until we are all satisfied that the truth is known and it justifies the sacrifices being foisted on us.

The moment someone wants to take something from you based on some event or argument is the moment that free speech is most valuable and necessary.  If the food safety board declares that cherries are no longer healthy and must be eradicated from my diet, then I want to see the evidence and arguments to the contrary before I surrender my warm slice of pie with a heap of vanilla ice cream on top.

In criminal law in most Western countries, a person must be proved guilty beyond a "reasonable doubt" before being convicted of a crime.  To remove ANY of my liberties and freedoms is effectively the same as convicting me of a crime beyond a "reasonable doubt."  Therefore, I want to examine the evidence from all sides.  I want to hear all the witnesses.  I want to see all the forensic research.  I want to question every detail before I surrender my freedom.  To abridge my right to free speech and access to information, to limit what and how much I can ingest of any substance, to hide any facts or alternatives is to convict me (or anyone) without trial.

So, what does all this mean?  What is "free speech?"

Does it mean we can question the right of Jews to claim a "homeland" called Israel?  Absolutely.  Despite 150 years of feverish digging in the Sinai and Egypt, there is yet to come to light any hard evidence to support the Biblical narrative of Exodus, and thus the claim of ancient homeland is suspect.  That the holocaust has been used to justify the political state of Israel, even with the paucity of evidence for the claim, and the use of lethal force (government and law) to enforce it, makes the entire thing suspect and open to critical review.  If the facts later support it, no problem.  But...

Does this mean we have the right to question 911, 77, and other acts of terrorism?  Absolutely.  Because those events have been used to justify indicting and convicting (removing civil rights) from the entire populace of nations, then we have the right to investigate thoroughly and ensure that the foundations of our collective conviction is justified and factual.

Does this mean we have the inalienable (in-a-LIEN-able) right to say whatever we want, no matter how offensive to others or the elite.  Absolutely.  We must be allowed to speak our minds and cast our opinions into the marketplace to allow others to judge their worthiness.  If we abridge a single word, then we have opened the floodgate, no matter how small, to further incursions on our liberty, and even the wholesale editing and control of history and what/how we think (a la Nineteen Eighty-Four).  None of us has a "right" to not be offended, but we all have the right to change the channel or move to another seat.

Does this mean there is an inalienable right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater?  Absolutely. It is not the act of yelling "fire," but the reaction of the crowd.  If anyone is injured or property destroyed, there are remedies under the law if the intent of the person yelling "fire" can be shown to have been less than honorable.

Free speech is a huge right, and one that all other rights are founded on.  It is also the foundation of a republican (not the party) form of government to preserve and protect fundamental rights for all members of society, no matter how many heads can be counted in each camp.  It is the classic case of two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, and lamb is off the menu.

"I disagree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it," is often attributed to Voltaire, but it was more likely expressed by Evelyn Beatrice Hall.  Thank goodness for historical revisionists.  It is not that Voltaire did not think this way, or even say something quite like it, but rather the fact that it was his biographer who expressed it in those particular words.

There is always room for new information, new ideas and revision of old concepts.  To limit any speech or deny anyone the right to put forth an argument on any topic is to set back human advancement if even an imperceptible amount.  It is vital that we protect the right of ALL people to express ANY argument, no matter how offensive we may personally find it.  If the argument has no merit (some genders/races are inferior to others), it is easily dismissed and eventually the speaker will have no audience.  If the argument is valid, then no matter how ridiculous or offensive it may seem, it deserves to be examined by a free society.  Any idea that requires deadly force (government and law) to enforce it is by definition unworthy of publication.  QED

Participating In Your Own Demise

A THOUGHT: How about a mass movement to rescind Obama's Peace Prize?  Might send a pretty loud message!  Something to consider...

Back in my idealistic youth, when I used to think it was worth fighting 'the system', I was arrested a lot for exercising my right to travel.  Didn't matter, since I always won in court, but it did give me quite an insight into the world of the police state.

Back then, in the early 1990s, I was being transported from one jail to another (just to give the lazy bastards something to do).  The cop drove most of the way at 90+ miles per hour down city streets, and at a red light that he couldn't run, he spotted an attractive young woman in the car next to us.  He delayed a bit at the green light and typed her license plate into his on-board computer, getting her vital stats and home address, among other things.

Supposedly, this type of thing was supposed to be illegal.  But so was careening at high speed down city streets when there was no emergency.  He did it because he could.  He had power, and who was going to do anything about it?  His colleagues who were doing the same thing?

You see, that's the thing about having power - the temptation to use it is overwhelming.  Especially when the only people who can stop you are doing the same thing.

When the NSA was given the power to spy on everyone, foreign and domestic, all that did was legally sanction what they had been doing for decades.  Snooping on people's private lives is what the CIA and NSA were designed to do from the get-go.  The FBI was doing it on American citizens since it was founded.  That agency was used by presidents to keep tabs on various critics and J. Edgar Hoover's files have been 'discovered' many times over the years.

It all started with drivers' licenses.  That one item allowed state governments to build databases of photos, vital stats, home addresses, and signatures.  Those files were appended with any notes and records the state cared to keep on you.  Then a law back in the 80s authorized the states to share that information with each other and the feral gummint in the name of catching 'deadbeat dads'.

They always couch these things in terms of a greater good: licensed drivers (safe roads), deadbeat dads (The Children), mass shootings (gun control), terrorism (snooping).  And it doesn't matter the original intent.  It only matters that they have the information and can use it with impunity for any purpose.

What's more, the NSA and its ilk have all the latest high-tech stuff, including super-computers and massive backbone internet lines.  If Goldman Sachs has the ability to front-run stock market trades, then you can bet the NSA has it.  In fact, it was probably developed for the government's crash prevention efforts, but with that kind of power lying around, who needs Iran-Contra to fund your black projects?  Just play the market for a day or two and *POOF*, you have tons of money to fund coups, secret incursions and any other hobbies you have picked up over the years.

Just like the cop I saw illegally getting information on a private citizen just because he took a liking to her, being able to manipulate markets for personal and departmental profit, not to mention just for the hell of it, would be a rather tough temptation to resist.  If you could push a button and make the stocks in your 401(k) skyrocket, would you think to yourself, "No, that wouldn't be ethical, even though all my co-workers are doing it and getting rich."

The fact is that ANY power in the hands of government is destined to be abused, as history shows.  Things as innocuous as census questionnaires and passports are being used to delve into people's personal lives and track/control their movements.  No amount of power is without the risk of abuse by government, any more than it is safe in the hands of individuals.  All power is subject to abuse, and greater power is subject to greater abuse, to paraphrase Baron Acton.  The most frightening abuses come when power is centralized, as it has been over the past century in the US.

The only solution is the complete dissolution of large, centralized governments, but that hardly seems likely.  Concerted efforts on the part of people to regain their power and rights might work for a time, but governments thus denuded will begin almost immediately retaking the same ground.  A neo-Luddite solution is also doomed to fail, as folks like their gee-gaws.

The only realistic solution is for people to stop participating in their own enslavement.  Let you driver's license expire and don't renew it.  Stop using taxpayer numbers for any reason.  Stop filling out the census questionnaires.  Don't use real names or data on any social media or electronic devices.  Try using hushmail.com or following some of these suggestions.

Whatever you do, spend at least some part of each day throwing as many monkey wrenches into the works as you can.  It is our civic and spiritual duty to start unraveling this mess.  After all, we are at least partly responsible for allowing it to happen.

As a vast number of people are starting to realize, freedom is something that is earned each day and in each generation.  We can not trust ANY government to protect our rights, no matter how benign it may seem or how many flowery words are written into the law.  All governments are enemies of peace and freedom by their very natures.  Don't they enforce their existence with guns?  It is the threat of violence that keeps people in line, so what's to stop them from taking more and more power from the same people at whom they point guns?

Governments are like unruly chidren: they will continue to misbehave until they find the limits of tolerance.  As long as we allow government to ride rough-shod over us, it will continue to increase the abuse until we finally put a stop to it.

The problem is, once genies are out of the bottle, they can be awful difficult to stuff back in.

Weapnized Rights: An Agenda

John Locke

For decades now, we have heard from dozens of 'minorities' demanding 'equal rights'.  Folks have been jumping up and down wanting rights for homosexuals and racial groups, genders and religions, in fact every minute segment of the population has had its spokespeople bullhorning the world about their 'rights'.  Invariably, they all want 'civil rights'.  But if we look closely at all this non-sense, can discern a deeper agenda?  Perhaps one not concerned with real, Natural Rights?

Let's begin with defining some terms.  Since the Enlightenment, western philosophy has recognized something called Natural Rights.  Perhaps Thomas Jefferson defined this concept succinctly than most: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  Beginning with John Locke, these concepts have been endlessly tossed around, but suffice it to say that there are Natural Right endowed in each human being that supersede all human forms of governance: they are granted by a/the Creator.

Let's turn now to 'civil rights'.  First, look at the adjective 'civil'.  This is defined as something having to do with citizens and the life of citizens in society.  A 'citizen' is defined as a natural-born or naturalized member of a political entity, such as a country.  In other words, these rights are granted as part of citizenship, and citizenship is conferred by a political entity, i.e. government.

Immediately, one should be able to perceive the profound differences between Natural Rights and civil rights (upper-case letters notwithstanding).  Natural Rights are 'endowed' by a Creator, which exists above all human control or authority.  Civil rights are granted by governments as part of a 'benefit package' for citizens.  Think of them like employee packages offered by companies as part of your compensation.

What this implies is that Natural Rights are immutable.  They are unalienable (un-a-LIEN-able - no lien may be placed on them).  They are not subject to whims and fancy.  They exist above and beyond the control of political and governmental agencies.

Civil rights, on the other hand, like employee benefit packages, can be given, withdrawn or modified at any time.  They are granted by government and can be taken away by government.  They are, in fact, mere ghosts of Natural Rights and are not endowed on all people, only those who are citizens of a certain political division, just as my benefit package is only for people who work in my company.  Yours may, and probably does, vary.

Frankly, if I were agitating for rights, I would chose to enforce those I was born with and which cannot be taken away, rather than begging government to grant me privileges that could just as easily be taken back tomorrow.

When we clarify the terms, we can begin to see the outline of an agenda, one which is subversive and dangerous to humanity.  While on the surface it may seem all warm and fuzzy to grant this group or that their civil rights, in fact what we are doing is weaking our Natural Rights by reducing them to benefit packages.

Let's say the sales and marking group at a company want to split because the marketing people want special benefits.  The company splits the group and gives them what they want.  Now the collective power of the original, single group is cut in half and dissension is introduced by making one of the new groups 'more special' than the other.  Later, when the marketing group wants a raise, they go to the sales group to support their efforts, but the folks in sales resent the marketers, so they back off.  The company, knowing that the marketing group doesn't have the support, is able to 'outsource' their function and cuts most of the positions in that department.  Thus, the original plan to get better benefits actually worked against the marketers in the end.

Granted, this is a somewhat simplistic example, but it sums up the net effect.  Under the Natural Rights program, all human beings everywhere have the same benefit package, no matter what company they work for, or even if they are self-employed.  If they change jobs or companies, they carry with them the same benefits they have enjoyed since birth.

Looked at in this way, we can define the agenda behind abortion rights or gay rights or minority rights.  These are not efforts to gain special status (though they may appear so from a certain perspective), they are fractionalizing humanity and making it far easier to take rights away in the long run.

Thus, the Natural Right to Life can be whittled down to how many days of gestation, or how much of the body has emerged from the mother, or other nit-picky details.  It also allows nefarious people to claim that 'tissue' which does not match the criteria of 'life' can be used for research and even patented as 'product' or 'property'.

Let's take another example.  Let's say the green people are demanding their civil rights from the purple people.  Automatically, this places the purple people in a superior position, able to 'grant' rights to other groups.  Furthermore, it creates strife among the green and the blue people, because the blue people don't yet have those civil rights.  Where before, we had 50% of the people in the purple class, and 50% in the blue and green classes, we now have 50% purples, 25% greens and 25% blues, with the blues and the greens no longer working together.  With the stroke of a pen, the purples have cut their opposition in half, while doubling their strength because they are not only in the position to grant rights, but they have got the opposition fighting among themselves and leaving the purples alone.

If we purples keep this ruse going, we can eventually subdivide the greens against each other, with long hairs on one side having special rights, while the short hairs on the other side have yet to receive the new civil rights.  Opposition is cut again, and on it goes.

Under the Natural Rights system, there is no need to fractionalize our collective power.  All humans everywhere at all times have the same rights: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  We are all human at conception and thus have the right to be born and to live as Nature or Destiny intends.  We all can go about those lives without hindrance by social or political forces.  And we may enjoy our privacy and self-rule within the boundaries of reason and concern for others' rights, so that the rewards and responsibilities of our life choices are ours alone.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are very broad categories, and Jefferson noted that these three were only some of a larger group.

Frankly, I would rather have unalienable, Natural Rights.  But, that brings up one last thing to look at: the term unalienable.

Unalienable is NOT the same as inalienable, no matter what the dictionaries say.  It is composed of un-, a-, lien (the root word), and -able.  The prefix un- simply means "not".  The prefix a- means "in", "on" or "into". The root word lien means "to put a claim on a person or property for payment of a debt".  And finally, the suffix -able, which of course is the ability to do something.  Thus, unalienable means "not able to place into a claim for debt", or simply, cannot be taken away for any reason.

I think most people would rather have unalienable Natural Rights given as part of our existence and heritage as human beings by an unassailable Creator, than a mish-mash of civil rights that can be handed out and taken away willy-nilly by governments and politicians with agendas that don't necessarily have our best interests at heart.

It's time we change the context of our argument.  We don't want civil rights.  We want Natural Rights, and we want them to be recognized, not granted, and defended not codified.  Human life is not a product or intellectual property to be owned.  Liberty is not being able to choose between New Zealand and Mexican strawberries.  The Pursuit of Happiness is not bigger plasma TeeVees and iPoops.  These are fundamental parts of our beings, just as a heart or lungs might be.

As an example, a woman's and man's choice is limited to whether or not to have sex.  Once their gametes have met, the resulting zygote is imbued with the human genome and those cells now have, as part of their heritage, the Rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (among others), just as every other human being.  To argue any other point is to open the debate of Natural Rights to the possibility of civil rights, and once that happens, all bets are off.

Natural Rights are not a matter of convenience or expediency.  They are immutable parts of the Universal Order of things, whether we call that Creator, God or some other name.  No government, group or entity has the right to abridge or a-lien those rights and to do so is a crime under the Natural Law.

It's time to redefine our terms in the public discourse.  We no longer want civil rights granted to us, we want to exercise the Natural Rights with which we were conceived.  Anything less is a crime against Nature herself.

The Fine Columbian

To paraphrase the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange week it's been.

Hitler's birthday passed relatively quiet.  In years past, there have been an inordinate number of big events around this particular date, including significant space events, Waco, Columbine, the BP Gulf of Mexico slaughter, and many others.

I was watching for some kind of marker, since They seem to be obsessed with celebrating this day.  At first, I though it was going to be one of the off-years, but then it happened...

Think about the archetypes involved here: the SS was caught in a scandal in South America involving Bolivian marching powder and little brown honeys.  SS?  South America?  Oh, that was just too rich!  They've gotten much more subtle now.  And it's hard to deny the tie between the two SSs.  Hitler's SS wore black uniforms and part of their job was to be his personal guard.  The Obama's SS wear black suits and part of their job is to do the same.

The delicious irony, too.  In the same week as the SS scandal, they were busily interrogating Ted Nugent about some of his comments regarding Obama's imminent re-election.  As if those black suits have any credibility left...  Next thing you know, they'll write off the scandal as an undercover investigation of drug and prostitution rings in Cartagena.  Bet me.

Another interesting event was the media getting caught with their propaganda pants down.  Looking at how media phrase things.  North Korea launched a missile that could "hit the US".  Iran's missiles are always talked about in terms of their ability to "hit Israel".  Then, India shows up with a missile that can "hit Beijing".

They never just give a range, or mention that any missile that can reach Earth orbit can hit anything anywhere on the planet.  They always give specific targets, though there are thousands of possible targets within the missile’s range.  Of course, if the particular country being discussed is the US itself or a close ally, then the missiles just have a range, or can be used to launch satellites, both relatively benign statistics.  You never hear, "The US tested a missile today that can level Moscow from Kansas.

It's all in the wording, and most people aren't critical of such things.  It's like those computer-generated photos in which the picture elements themselves are other pictures.  In other words, it's not the message, but how the message is composed that is the message.  One of those fun ponders for an afternoon of primo and scotch, eh?

Here's another good ponder for you.  What is a ‘person’?  Do ‘rights’ really exist?  And why is it so important to take God out of the public sphere?

Talk about a brain bomb.

The easiest part to dispose of, ironically, is God.  Everyone runs around talking about their "God-given rights."  Most of the thinking in the Enlightenment period was about Natural Rights and where they come from and who backs them up.  It always came down to appeal to a higher power in order to enforce rights  Every human has natural rights, because they are 'endowded by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.'  By the way, the root of 'unalienable' is 'lien', not 'alien'.  You can't put a lien on the rights or sign them away.

At any rate, if you take God out of the picture, then the author of the rights disappears and the conversation then turns to, "What rights?"  As George Carlin said very well, there are no rights.  No such thing.  Completely made up.  If there were Natural Rights, there would be no need to defend them.  The rights would be self-defending and apparent, like having ten fingers and ten toes.

This is why the Framers of the US Constitution backed up their assertion of Natural Rights with the right to keep and bear arms.  When it comes down to it, the only rights you or I have are those which we are willing to defend with lethal force.  Obviously, those who want to take away our rights are willing to use lethal force to do so, so it stands to reason that an equal response is called for here.

In other words, free speech is limited by folks willing to shoot you to shut you up, so you must be willing to shoot them to maintain your 'right'.  Ergo, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which backs up all those pretty 'rights' with the 'legal' ability to shoot anyone who would take them away.  Of course, it says 'keep and bear arms', not buy and stockpile ammunition, so your rights end when the ammo supply runs out.

The final ponder is 'person'.  What is a 'person'?  Most Western law defines 'person' as EITHER an individual, or a collective acting in concert as if an individual.  This seemingly simple concept is the reason why corporations are treated as 'persons' having 'rights' under the law.  It is the origin of the 'corporate veil', in which only the collective can be punished, not the individuals behind it.

Since you can't throw a corporation in jail, the only other way to punish a concept is financial sanction.  Therefore, the worst thing you can do to a collective is to take away its profit, or some part thereof.

But how did all this come about?  After all, in our common speech, a person is just an individual human being using a non-gendered, non-specific term.

Interestingly, the origin of this concept of 'person' comes from the medieval Roman church.  Theologians took a close look at two New Testament concepts: the Church itself and the line, "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there too am I."  In other words, a group of people in common purpose constitutes a 'church', which is a singular entity supposedly more than the sum of its parts.

And here is how we got to the term 'person'.  It originally came from the Greek phersu, which was the mask worn by actors on stage...the classic image of comedy and tragedy.  In Latin, it became persona, meaning human being, on so on.  

In philosophy, a person represented the irreducible being that couldn't be defined by its parts, because the whole was more than a set of functions.  A human being could not be defined as the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and lymphatic systems, nor could the human being be defined by the collection of mental and physical processes within an individual.  Even though we all have the same basic parts and functions, we are completely unique individuals, therefore we are more than the sum of our parts, therefore we are 'persons'.  Even persons are described as individuals...'unable to divide' any further without destroying the whole.

The Church was seen as being more than the sum of the beings who joined to create it.  A pope could die and another get elected, but the whole continued uninterrupted.  In this way, the collective was seen to be a macro version of the individual human being.  It existed on a plane above the collection of parts that constituted it.

By extension, something like McDonald's cannot be defined by the individuals who make up the corporate entity.  The CEO can retire or die, and another steps in, but the collective continues without interruption.  If you swap out the PhD flipping burgers with a high school drop-out doing the same job, it makes no difference to the 'person' of McDonald's.

Just like when one of your skin cells dies and is replaced by another.  You don't feel different,  You don't behave different.  You simply continue on as if nothing had happened.  In the same way, if you cut off an arm, the 'person' that is you does not change because of it.  'You' are more than the sum of your parts and functions.  You are a 'person'.

With all that said, where does that leave us?

Basically, we looked at Nature and saw that we humans were complete Universes within ourselves.  We were indivisible and individual.  Therefore, we were in the same image as God, who was also indivisible and individual.  We came to see ourselves as part of the creative process in this way.  If a group of us got together to perform a function, then that collective became a 'person' that we created by virtue of our joining in common cause.  Furthermore, we ascribed 'rights' to 'persons'.  

As images of God, we were endowed with 'rights' that were previously only given to kings in their function as the 'person' of the State.  If we are all 'persons' who are co-creators and perfect images of God, then we all have the same 'rights' as the king.  Thus, we are all kings (the sovereign individual movement).

In the end, however grand our reasoning and philosophies, we have no basic Natural Rights.  You claim to right to property, but I can steal it just as easily.  You claim the right to speak, but I can silence you in a dozen different ways.  You claim the right to privacy, but that's only a good as no one else listening.  Ultimately, the only rights you and I have are the ones for which we are willing to kill.  Anything short of that is not a right.  It is a civil privilege that lasts only as long as the majority respects the laws on which the privileges are founded.

In the final analysis, all that we hold dear is founded on a single, savage act.  As proof, I offer the sum total of human history, in which millions have died to secure or take away various rights.  If these rights were in fact God-given, there would be no need to kill to protect them, and in fact, there would be no need to kill to determine whose God is more powerful.

When we strip away all the centuries of rhetoric, there is only a human being who is a 'person', individual and indivisible.  Just like Dick Cheney.  You can swap out hearts, and even give him mechanical organs, and he's still the same mean, bitter old fool who shoots his friends in the face.

So, what does it all mean?  It means it's time from more primo and scotch!

A Shark By Any Other Name

Cade:
I thank you, good people—there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

Dick:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

Cade:
Nay, that I mean to do.

--Shakespeare, Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78

From the moment Man created Law, he created his own worst enemy, the lawyer.

There has always been a class of people who have insinuated themselves into the middleman position between us and Justice. In the Bible, God reached down and etched The Law on some stone tablets (which if you've read Joseph Farrell's The Cosmic War, then you know what those are). Almost immediately, there arose a class of folks who began interpreting what exactly God meant by 'false gods' and 'keeping holy the Sabbath.' Biblical readers will know these folks as Pharisees.

The Pharisees' job was to take fairly clear, simple language and obfuscate the hell out it. Keeping holy the Sabbath meant that you couldn't walk more than so far from your door, and you had to follow a certain script when praying, and you had to wear certain clothes, and if you were a woman, well forget you. You don't get no preachifying.

The Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Greeks, and most importanly (to us), the Romans, all had this class of 'know-betters' who told us they were necessary to interpret Law, as well as speak for us ignorant rabble in the Holy Courts of the Land.

Certainly, Babylonian law, at least in terms of form and function, are still deeply rooted in Western culture to this time. However, the most influencial law today is Roman administrative law, which informs everything from traffic court to civil tort in our modern system.

The law is basically divided into two primary classes: The Organic or Natural Law, and the Administrative Law. The Natural Law makes complete sense, of course. It deals with big concepts of fairness and justice. The civil administrative code are all the stupid little infractions that serve as revenue generators in modern society. Even the use of the word 'code' is a clue as to what is going on.

The Natural Law, as has been eloquently expounded on by far greater minds than mind, is summed up in a few basic concepts: don't murder, don't steal and leave your neighbor's stuff alone. These are things that are pretty much hard-wired into humans. We have a natural abhorrance to things like murder and theft. It violates out sense of fair play and equality. It applies in the jungles of Borneo, as well as the jungles of Manhattan. It is universally enshined in every legal system everywhere throughout all history.

Civil or Administrative Code, on the other hand, is a creature of society. It springs from the concept of 'contract.' In Texas, we say a man's word is his bond, but in actual practice, a lot of people welsh on agreements. Thus, the contract was born. This is a document which spells out the precise terms and performance of an agreement, no matter what the subject. There is a proscribled form in most legal systems.

Herein lies the problem. Once you introduce the concept of contract, then you must build up an infrastructure to enforce it, which in turn introduces a sub-class of human whose job it is to parse and interpret every little nuance of the contract to find loopholes and force performance.

Contract further opens the door to a thing called 'citizenship.' This is often referred to as the 'social contract.' I call myself a citizen and pay taxes, and in return, the 'system' provides me certain services, such as enforcement of contracts. The 'social contract' leads to 'citizenship,' which leads to 'obligation,' which leads to 'conspription.' Conscription can take many forms.

Once you are a citizen of some abstraction called a 'nation,' then you can be compelled, through contract, to perform certain duties. These duties many involve taxes, armed forces service, compulsory education, and obeying speed limits. Whatever whims strike the 'government,' as dreamed up by 'lawyers,' can be enforced on the 'citizenry' because of 'social contract.' Key words include that little gem, 'enforced,' as in at the point of a gun.

Once we've established this thing called a 'citizen,' which in fact in NOT a human being, but a construct of administrative code, then the next step is to create 'artificial' persons called 'corporations,' from the Latin corpus, meaning 'body.' Corporations are, in the eyes of the administrative code, the same as a 'citizen.' They have rights and obligations to the state, just like 'citizens.'

This is why concepts, such as 'civil rights,' are so dangerous. It implies that the civil authority confers such rights and that it can give them to any entity it wants, or conversely, take them away. Civil rights are NOT Natural Rights. They are granted by a civil authority, and can be taken back at the whim of civil authority. This is why Thomas Jefferson made the statement:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Often mispronounced, the word "unalienable" is not 'un-ALIEN-able,' but 'un-a-LIEN-able,' as in a lien on your car or house. In other words, the rights are part of being human and can not be given away or taken away. Natural human beings have 'unalienable' rights, 'citizens' have civil rights as part of their contract with 'authority.' If you violate the 'civil contract,' your right to 'liberty' is taken away and you are promptly thrown in jail. Obviously, civil authority thinks it is higher than the Creator/Universe/God.

To continue building on our theme, the British developed the Law of the Seas, which was founded on centuries of thought and practice. The Law of the Seas eventually became the Law of Admiralty, making the Admiral of a fleet the ultimately authority under the Crown when on the 'high seas.' The Law of Admiralty evolved into the Law of Nations, which is the foundation of the UN's supposed authority.

Under the Law of Nations, there is a thing called the Law of Flags, which is this annoying habit of Europeans to run around the world sticking their flags in everything and calling it 'theirs.' The first thing Apollo astronauts did on the Moon, after setting up cameras to record the events, was stick a flag in the Moon to clain it for the USofA. Anyway, under the Law of Flags, any Court of Admiralty must disply the flag of the host nation with a gold fringe, or Admiral's Flag. Thus, when you walk into any courtroom, classroom or Kiwanis hall, there's always a gold-fringed flag. You are no longer under the 'organic' law of your native land, you are now under the Law of Nations, or Admiralty.

Out of this was born the Universal Code of Commerce, or UCC. The UCC is a far-reaching set of administrative laws that govern just about everything done in commerce, which lawyers will tell you is anyting you do in public. Driving to work, shopping for food, going to the doctor are all governed by the UCC, which is why it all requires 'licenses.' A license, as defined by code, is permission to do something which is otherwise illegal. So, your health, your mobility and your food are all illegal and must have the permission of the 'Crown' in order to perform these actions.

As a 'citizen,' you are given a 'birth certificate.' Without it, you don't 'exist.' You are a natural human being on the land and are not part of the civil contract. However, if you have one, then you are bound from birth to the civil contract and must perform certain actions under that contract, or lose your civil rights. This 'citizen' concept is often referred to as the 'straw man.' Corporate charters are 'birth certificates,' and the 'by-laws' function as the conscience of these artificial 'persons.'

This all leads to the final point. Under the law, there are 'words' and there are 'terms.' Words are understood to have the 'common' or dictionary meaning, while terms have special definitions under the law. If you read laws, you will usually see at the beginning something like, "For the purposes of this section, the term 'vehicle' shall mean..."

The concept of Natural Rights can be summed up as, I am free to do whatever I want as long as it doesn't iminge on your right to do the same. So if I want to shoot up heroine, smoke opium and sit in the corner of my room drooling and masturbating, that is my right, as long as I don't interfere with your right not to do those things and you don't interfere with my right to continue.

There are so many concepts to cover within this topic, things such as: Freedom of Expression in NOT Freedom of Speech; The Right to Travel cannot be licensed or regulated, even on public roadways; Taxes are NOT an inevitable part of life. It's all very complex, thanks in whole to those creatures called 'lawyers.'

It all boils down to exactitude of language being purity of thought. If you are aware of how you are manipulated through the use of words and terms, then you are 90% of the way home. The rest is acting on that knowledge. Therein lies the rub.

Most of us would rather sit around watching 'American Idol' than reading the law and studying the development of our current enslavement. It's hard to complain about imprisonment when you can endlessly entertain yourself with knick-knacks and geegaws. But, distraction is not solution, and as long as we think that we are free inside of our prison, we will watch our natural rights and our true wealth leech away until one day (sooner than later, I think) we will have nothing. Except, maybe, a gaggle of lawyers.

Are all lawyers bad? In intent, no. In practice, yes. Every lawyer, no matter how well-intentioned and high-minded he is, is part of the problem and can never be part of the solution. Every legal solution adds yet another layer to the onion of our captivity. There is only one way out.

As the old, tired saying goes, “Ignorance of the law in no defense.” Therefore, it stands to reason that knowldge of the law is the perfect defense. For the most part, we are profoundly ignorant of something that affects every single aspect of our lives. It behooves us to take some part of our lives to learn about and act upon something that is that far rooted. Certainly, if you have the time to worry about the life and times of your favorite pop star or the vaguest stats of your favorite sport hero, then you have time to learn about the invisible net that has entrapped and enslaved you.

Remember the next time you go to court, and you hire a lawyer, what you have done is declared yourself 'incompetent' in the eyes of the law. You have rendered yourself 'mute before the bench' and basically told the court that you are mentally incompetent to stand up for yourself. In other words, hiring a lawyer is, IN FACT, a plea of insanity.

Don't believe me? Look it up.

Latest developments on the 'Strawman Argument.'