Authority Is A Virus

One of the most iconic and enduring scenes from George Orwell's famous book Nineteen Eighty-Four is the one in which main character Winston Smith finally capitulates in Room 101 and actually sees five fingers, when O'Brien is only holding up four.  To be more accurate, Smith admits he doesn't know how many fingers there are without being told, regardless of what his own senses are telling him.

A similar scene takes place in the "Chain of Command" episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Captain Picard is tortured by an alien and repeatedly told that he sees five lights, when there are in fact only four.  Picard later admits, after being rescued, that he could in fact see five.

Both these well-known scenes depict the power of authority to control the perceptions of those it considers under its sway.  In an authoritarian State, the State assumes the power to dictate reality itself to the masses, and by either coersion or capitulation, the masses accept.

Because science is the study of reality, it is important that the authoritarian State control the results of scientific investigation.  In our current society, the State dictates its chosen narrative in the guise of science, controls the education of sciene, and through funding controls who will and won't be allowed access to the gliziest toys and to publish their findings.

Through this mechanism, the State controls what is perceived as "settled science" and the interpretation of the results.  In this way, the authoritarian State controls reality itself.

After years of indoctrination at the hands of the State's schools and media, the world is populated with people who literally deny the evidence of their own eyes and common sense, in favor of the official narrative.  In other words, they willingly choose not to know how many fingers or lights there are until told by someone in "authority"/

The Star Trek example here dramatizes the brute force approach.  The State is aware that it is foisting a false narrative on the masses, and uses pain and suffering to force the masses to accept the dictated reality.

Orwell's Smith and O'Brien are much more subtle and closer to what we really experience.  In this scene, O'Brien - the representative of State authority, has already been indoctrinated/  While he is aware at some level that there are other ways to view reality, he cannot see them.  He only manipulates their symbols in order to force Smith to accept the dictated narrative.  O'Brien reads from a script, as it were.  As representative of authority, he is full a part of the authoritarianism.  He is not above or outside it, or he could not "teach" it to Smith.

In the modern authoritarian State, it is hard to tell whether any of the heirarchy have a larger picture or context.  It seems to have become a self-perpetuating illusion that every member of the Inner Party fervently believes, and is incapable of seeing objective reality, even though it can manipulate the trappings of it, for the purposes of shutting down and endoctrinating those who see beyond the ruse.

There are many examples of this, but things like "gravitational waves" or the "Higgs boson: are perfect examples.  The State has spent billions of our hard-earned dollars on things like the CERN "atom smasher" and the LIGO "gravitational wave" detectors as props to reinforce how "serious" the Stat'e's narrative is.  Only fully indoctrinated individuals are allowed to use these contraptions, and only those "findings" that match the official narrative are allowed to be published. 

Since the individual's income and years of work are dependent on "finding" the approved answers, they willfully view reality through "warped glasses" and will fervently defend whatever results they are allowed to publish, while ignoring any other results that don't match the bespoke narrative.

Thus, through an intricate system of rewards and punishments, people rise through the ranks of the authoritarian structure until everyone, from top to bottom, is fully incapable of seeing objective reality.  They advance and are rewarded with perks for toeing the State's line, and those who do not are marginalized and discarded if they can't be "re-educated".

Science was envisioned as a means to filter out the authoritarian bias, but the method was conscripted by the authorities and bent to their will.  We must realize, though, that the original authorities actually believed their own narrative and willfully prevented themselves from seeing any other possibilities.

In the end, O'Brien can indoctrinate Smith because he IS the system - he fully embraces and believes in the the system, he can see nothing other than the system.  He can manipulate objective reality, and Smith's mind, only to the extent that it serves the authoritarian purpose.  It is as if he has a virus that has invaded his entire body, and at that point becomes a carrier who then can infect others.

It is a strange and all-encompassing phenomenon that is active throughout our daily lives.  Even those of us who consider ourselves "awake" are infected with the virus of authoritarianism, and it is very difficult to let go of the illness, since we must function in the world that has been created for us.  It is still an open question.  The disease is pervasive, both within and without.  Even those who are recovering from the disease are highly prone to relapse.

We must constantly check whether we see five lights or four, and whatever the answer, discover some way to objectively check the answer.  Even then, it is not a matter of how many lights we see, but whether we require an authority to tell us what to see.

Who Would Fardels Bear

Indonesians are hard-core realists.  It's at once one of their most frustrating qualities, and one of their most endearing - at least for people who live in the real world.

Minutes after two bombs went off in a crowded area of East Jakarta last night, social media was circulating graphic photos and videos of scattered body parts: a head here, a leg there, an arm over yonder.  They like to take a good hard look at death.  It's something that might change a few people in the West.

It would be good for the Katy Perrys of the world to take a good hard look at what terrorists do.  All the open borders and fuzzy hugs and Post-Modernist hickies will not change this reality.

It's important to keep in mind that the Jakarta bombs last night were created by Muslims to be used on Muslims during a traditional pre-Ramadhan parade - the highest of holy days in Islam.  This is what terrorists do to their own, why should we expect anything less against any other target.

The fact is that these terrorists have only one goal in mind: destruction.  Can events like Manchester and Jakarta have any positive effect on reasonable people?  Does anyone really think that wholesale death will win converts, much less hearts and minds?

These terrorists are sub-human beasts.  They have no desire or purpose other than to kill, maim and destroy.  They are weaponized individuals who honestly think there is some great reward in the afterlife for this kind of behavior, and their higher-reasoning facilities - if they ever existed - have been shorted out by those have no souls.

There is no amount of love and psycho-babble that will change these people.  They are beyond hope.  They have no loyalties but to death and destruction.  There is no humanity in them to reach with group hugs and therapy sessions.  No amount of concessions will ever placate them.  At best, they are mindless beasts before they set off bombs in crowds of innocent people, and at worst they are wads of hamburger to be swept up before the dogs get to the meat.

In fact, there is one possible way I can see that might dissuade a few of these despicable animals.  If clean-up crews were shown on global television in graphic color and detail picking up the scrambled remains of these wastes of life and feeding them to dogs and pigs.  That might even be a fitting sentence for convicted terrorists - thrown into pits of ravenous dogs and swine.  Let their fellow scum watch their buddies be defiled by haram animals on global TeeVee - that just might make an impact.

The point here is that we, the normal functional part of the world, are at war.  The bad side knows no boundaries or rules.  It is all-out warfare.  Every other human on Earth is a combatant and these slime have one goal - wipe everyone out.

No, it's not to convert anyone to Islam.  They blow up Muslims as frequently as any other group.  They need to be utterly destroyed because they cannot be turned off or remediated.  They have no ideals and cannot be reasoned with.  They are hardly more than single-minded machines aimed and released at the desired targets.

The main problem here is not how to deal with these mindless scum.  Since they will kill anyone for no reason at all - they are not aimed at any one offending group, but all humanity - they are not driven by ideology.  They are, in fact, weaponized humans.

And that means there is someone else pulling their strings.

Behind these empty meat jackets called terrorists is some hidden group with an agenda.  It is not religion, but social engineering that is the purpose.  This hidden force has created a mass of disaffected psychopaths that they can set off against any target, anywhere for any reason.  Anyone who tells you this is about Islam is either ignorant, or part of the hidden group.

The point of all this terror is fear and capitulation.  It is not about spreading any religion, much less Islam.  If it were, do you think the Muslims would be busy blowing each other up?  No, this is an agenda to create a certain kind of society that accepts fear and domination as an everyday way of life.

The point of all this death and destruction is not to force us to accept a religion, it is to force us to accept domination and slavery.  It is not about any god or philosophy, it is about abject submission to authority.

The use of fear and death is to herd us into begging authority for protection, to accept the dominance of the State as mother, father and source of life.  The terrorists are just machines put to use by this hidden group of cowards, who want to spring forth at just the right moment to save us from the chaos.

There is only one way to fight, and that is to defend ourselves.  We must take our own safety into our own hands; take full responsibility for protecting ourselves.  We must fight for those things we all thought was a job delegated to governments.  The governments obviously don't care, so we must forget about them, stop supporting them, and figure out our own ways and means to survive.

Witness the US, where the day after Manchester, the TSA became even more invasive and destructive of personal rights and dignity.  Their job is not to protect anyone, otherwise they would be going after the real perpetrators.  Their job is to make us choose between slavery and death, and frankly death is a better choice.

We must clearly see the target, and the target is not a bunch of weaponized drones spouting religious epithets.  The target is a bunch of cynical overlords using our cultures against us.  It is the media, the governments and the social structures we take for granted that are closing the trap around us.

We are cows to be herded, and the terrorists are the cowboys whose job it is to drive us into the corrals.  The more we turn to "authorities" to save us from these drones, the more we play into the hands of the overlords.

Terrorists aren't the problem, they are a symptom of something much larger and far more evil.  The terrorists are willing tools for something they can hardly comprehend, but which they have mistaken for a god.

We cannot make the same mistake.  That god will not save us, it is the heart of the problem.  Our job is to reject all the hands of the Machine and start relying on ourselves once again.  The only remedy for this disease is personal responsibility for our own safety and well-being.  And our best weapon is our wallets.

Tune in tomorrow...

Sticks And Stones

Giordano Bruno

In any free society, according to the brilliant Enlightenment thinkers of 250 years ago, the most critical individual freedoms are Free Speech, Free Press and Freedom from Religious Tyranny.  The US Constitution backs these principles up with the Second Amendment, which recognizes the individual's right to arm himself to defend those three lynch-pins of liberty.

Of the Big Three, Free Speech is the one that supports all the others.  My unaLIENable right to speak my mind, and your unaLIENable right to respond is the basis of a free and open society.

The two greatest enemies of Free Speech are the State and Religion.  The most dangerous condition is when Religion has sway over the State.  Throughout history, the most repressive regimes have all been theocracies.  The first thing a theocracy does is shut down criticism of itself, then it proceeds to define everything in terms of itself.  Since Religion claims to have the keys to all of existence, naturally it sees just about anything as a threat to its grandiose claims - especially the right to freely speak the contradictions and pure fantasy inherent in all religions.

In ancient Rome, it was a capital crime to speak out against Caesar, who being deified as a matter of course by the Senate, was a demi-god created by the State.  To speak against Caesar was to speak again Nature and the Universe themselves.

In its most benign form, theocracies are still intolerant of Free Speech.  Thailand does not tolerate any speech about the king, unless it is glowing and praiseful.  One can get in quite a bit of trouble for pointing out flaws, contradictions or wrongs on the part of the king, and to a certain extent the immediate royal family, as well.

Here in Indonesia, there is a blasphemy law that primarily protects Islam, though it has occasionally been used by Hindus, Buddhists and Christians.  Most recently, Jakarta governor Ahok quoted a bit of the Koran that prohibits Koranic verses from being used for political purposes.  Of course, he was immediately charged with blasphemy (being a Christian and reciting the Koran), and is still being politically attacked for reminding folks what the Good Book says.

The US is a rather strange situation.  Since the government and Religion are not allowed to be bedfellows, a sort of secular religion was created.  Blending "science", "environmentalism", "tolerance", and "diversity", a beast called Political Correctness was born that has the same effect as Religion, but the word "religion" is religiously avoided.  Through the rampant use of PC, people are forbidden to raise topics such as immigration, climate change, or any of a host of other topics that "blaspheme" the State Religion.

In any repressive regime, there are always quasi-official gangs whose job it is to go round and commit acts of violence and destruction against those deemed to be enemies of the Religion.  Here, it;s the FPI, in the US it's SJW.  Either way, the goals and results are the same.  It's just a game of semantics, really.

The Roman Church went on its own pogrom, known affectionately as the Inquisition, in order to stifle Free Speech.  People like Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei were hounded and harassed, and in some cased killed, for daring to speak out of turn.  Even up until the 50s, publishers strove to receive a "Nihil Obstat" and "Imprimatur" from the Church so that sales would not be limited by having the Church ban its mind-slaves from reading the books.  Even though the system was a sanctioned form of bribery much like "halal" or "kosher", it still had the effect of stifling Free Speech at some level.

The fact of the matter is that limiting Free Speech is a very old institution used primarily by the state and religious authorities.  It is a blatant admission of weakness, since those enforcing limits know that their "arguments" are so inherently illogical, they cannot stand up to open inquiry and criticism.  Speech limits always carry the threat of violence, and an individual or group who resort to violence have run out of verbal defenses of their positions and admitted their weakness through the use of force.

Of all the perceived sins against the State and Religion (i.e. authority), Free Speech is the most dangerous, since any limit on the individual must be backed up with the threat of violence.  Furthermore, "authority" will continuously expand its definition of limits until it meets resistance from the greatest number of people. and ultimately those threatened will expand until it includes everyone who is not an "authority".

What most people fear about Free Speech is that eventually they will run into ideas that offend them.  For speech to be truly free, we cannot limit anyone's right to express ideas or opinions, no matter how ridiculous or offensive they are.  Once a group accepts that there is any limit on speech, then all speech is limited, since the movement will ultimately expand to encompass just about everything except the proscribed "right think".

Most people will agree that the Nazis were very bad folks and that the rest of us don't want them around.  However, we are forced to admit that even the Nazis cam up with ideas like the Volkswagen Beetle.  ao

In every ugly or abhorrent idea, there is some kernel of truth that can be gleaobned.  We may not agree with, or may even be deeply offended by someone's speech, but it is absolutely vital that we allow that speech.  By limiting anyone's speech, we do ourselves and the world a disfavor by cutting off potentially world-changing ideas, no matter how buried in hurtful or hateful trappings.

It is never speech that hurts anyone, it is the actions taken based on it, and that is where limits are properly placed.

Galileo was imprisoned for life by "authorities" because he observed objects orbiting a body other than the Earth.  This was deeply offensive the the State and Religion.  However, imprisoning him for life did not change the facts, only who could hear them.

Dark Pots And Black Kettles

"Rogue state is a controversial term applied by some international theorists to states they consider threatening to the world's peace. This means meeting certain criteria, such as being ruled by authoritarian regimes that severely restrict human rights, sponsor terrorism, and seek to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.[4] The term is used most by the United States, though the US State Department officially quit using the term in 2000.[5] However, it has been applied by other countries as well.[6]"

As the old saying goes, "If the shoe fits, wear it."

One assumes that the US "officially" stopped using the term 'rogue state' because it was becoming a bit obvious that the definition was a bit too close to home.  One tends to look a bit silly when one is a leper condemning lepers.  The tactic works for a while: pointing the finger at others to keep folks from looking at you.  Eventually, though, the ruse wears thin and people stop looking the other way.

The definition says that a 'rogue state' is characterized by an authoritarian regime.  We not that an online dictionary defines 'authoritarian' as:

au·thor·i·tar·i·an  [uh-thawr-i-tair-ee-uhn, uh-thor-]  adjective1.  favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom: authoritarian principles; authoritarian attitudes.
2.  of or pertaining to a governmental or political system, principle, or practice in which individual freedom is held as completely subordinate to the power or authority of the state, centered either in one person or a small group that is not constitutionally accountable to the people.
3.  exercising complete or almost complete control over the will of another or of others: an authoritarian parent.

Favoring complete obedience or subjection?  Might that include federal agents raiding marijuana vendors in states where the laws clearly state that the practice is legal?  Or how about warrantless searches, tasering citizens for looking cross-eyed at police, or indefinite detention without trial or access to legal defense?  Perhaps the idea that personal freedom is subject to law at all, rather than a gift and state of Nature?

Certainly, having TSA, FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, marshals, and any of a couple dozen other armed extralegal agencies running around subjugating the population using various means would seem to fit the definition of 'authoritarian' quite readily.

So how about sponsoring terrorism?  This is a tricky one because terrorism depends heavily on who is defining the term.  The founders of the US could easily be called terrorists by the British.  The North American native peoples might have thought of the US cavalry as terrorists.  Clearly, the Assad government considers the rebels to be terrorists, and they are openly supported by the US.  The long, sad history of CIA involvement in political coups, assassinations and other nefarious acts would qualify that agency as a terrorist group.

We can't forget the US-led blockades against multiple nations.  The denial of basic food, medicine and energy to entire nations, civilian and military alike, easily falls under the definition of 'terrorism', since the desired effect is to frighten the citizenry into predefined actions, such as overturning legitimately seated governments.  The US itself has considered blockades (British, Confederate, etc.) as acts of 'terrorism' and war against itself.  'No-fly zones' might be included here, as they deny the basic right of humans to defend themselves against attack.

It would seem that from the point of view of a great number of people, the US sponsors terrorism.

How about seeking to proliferate weapons of mass destruction?  Again, we turn to our online dictionary to check the definition of 'proliferate':

pro·lif·er·ate  [pruh-lif-uh-reyt]  verb (used without object), verb1.  to grow or produce by multiplication of parts, as in budding or cell division, or by procreation.
2.  to increase in number or spread rapidly and often excessively.

By most accounts (Nazi research aside), the US invented both the uranium and hydrogen bombs, easily the most destructive devices ever conceived by Man.  The US, as far as we know, is also the only country to have used them in warfare.  The US has designed and/or developed a great number of chemical and biological weapons, such as ricin, anthrax, LSD, and many others, and performs research, manufacturing and storage of these weapons.

As for the US Army's willingness to use them, we need look no further than the infamous smallpox blankets distributed to native Americans and the Army's refusal to provide vaccines to stop the epidemic.  While that is only the best documented event, there is substantial evidence that the US has deployed chemical and biological agents on numerous other occasions.  Among them is the use of psychotropic chemicals by the CIA when researching various forms of psychological warfare.

We also know that the US has the stated goal, if not the ability at this point, to weaponize weather, which may be considered mass destruction.  The document AF 2025 Final Report is widely available online.  There is a large body of research that points to the HAARP device and a related network of arrays across North America are used in active research, at the very least, and actual weather modification, at the most extreme.

Finally, the US and its military-industrial complex are the largest producers of military hardware on the planet.  Together, they also constitute the largest arms dealer on said planet.  The weapons manufactured and sold by this consortium include both 'smart' (highly targeted) and mass weapons.

We come now to the final part of the 'rogue state' definition: 'considered threatening to world peace'.

The US has military bases and/or personnel on active duty in at least 130 countries around the world, according to Ron Paul.  There are just over 200 recognized, sovereign states in the world.  That's about 65% of the world actively occupied by the US military.  Only Germany, as far as any credible information goes, has a reciprocal base in North America.

The US is also actively involved in nearly all of the major conflicts on Earth at this time.  Whether it is Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, or South/Central America, the US has a significant role in ongoing military situations there.

Combined, these facts would seem to strongly imply that the US is a major threat to world peace.  All euphemistic terms, obfuscations and excuses aside, the production and distribution of arms, the occupation of more than half of the world's nations, and active research into weapon technology, both smart and mass, as well as a history of willingness to use all of the above to subdue people, both foreign and domestic, defines a threat to world peace.

Regardless of whether the US has 'officially' abandoned the term 'rogue state', it did at one time actively use the term and had a significant role in defining it.  The ongoing revelations of egregious violations of individual liberties by the US against its own people, much less those of other countries, is the hallmark of despotism.  The use of multiple government agencies to subdue and forcefully rule people is the very definition of authoritarian.

History teaches us that these kinds of states end badly for all concerned.  From Rome to the Soviet Union, authoritarianism contains its own destruction by denying people their most basic desires of freedom, peace and privacy.  Eventually, whether from within, outside or a combination of the two, these types of regimes are dismantled.  It is a fact with many examples throughout world history.

In the extant case, history must serve as a cautionary tale to both the leaders and population of the US.  While these types of regimes may exist and even prosper for a time, at some point an equal and opposite force will arise.  It is one of the fundamental laws of Nature.  The historical models also tell us that the fall of these regimes is very painful for many, especially the innocent caught both by surprise and in the middle of the conflict.

It is therefore incumbent on the American people to check the unbridled expansion of the current paradigm, for it is the American people who will suffer the most should the worst-case scenario occur.  Authoritarian regimes often end with the occupation and forceful dismantling of the state's apparatus.  It is better that the American people handle this themselves, obviously, to preserve some order and ensure a way of life to their liking.

One of the hardest things to admit is that your own country is neither moral nor ethical.  We all like to think that we are a force for good in the world.  But we must look at these things objectively and examine the results obtained by those acting in our name.  It is a common fallacy to say that the ends justify the means.  Peace is not achieved through war, and order is not drawn from chaos without without an incredible amount of energy being put into the equation.

None of this is to say that the US is the only rogue state, but it is the largest and most threatening.  No political structure has ever been conceived that is so good that it must be foisted on the rest of the world by force.  One catches far more flies with honey than with salt.

The American people have many peaceful, even passive, tools at their disposal to change the direction their leaders have chosen for them.  Violence is not an answer, for it only begets more violence.  Nor is this to say that unenlightened anarchy is an answer.  It can be as simple as an overwhelming majority openly and actively refusing to participate in elections.  There can be not claim to legitimacy in a democracy if a large majority of the electorate refuse to participate on moral and ethical grounds.

Though only one example, the reader is more than able to discern a dozen other such actions that would have immediate effect on both the existence and perception of a rogue state.  The key here is that rogue states are geared to absorb and expel violence.  By approaching the problem this way is to invite certain defeat.  They are, however, incapable of understanding peaceful initiatives.  To them, all the world is a nail for which they only conceive of hammers.

Only when the people stop participating in their own subjugation will things change.

At The Mercy Of Symbols

How often have you stopped to consider how much of our lives are controlled by symbols?  When you think about it, we are literally ruled in every aspect of our lives by abstractions.  We submit to costumes, pictures and pretty words without hardly a thought to what we are doing.  Isn't it time we started questioning some of our most basic assumptions?

At the root of most cultures is something called 'law'.  Law is nothing more than a symbol for morality and ethics, not the real thing.  Law assumes that human beings are incapable of being kind, generous and loving, and substitutes those real things with codified penalties for not acting like human beings.

Those who profit from making, enforcing and judging laws tell us that without them, humanity would devolve into chaos.  Yet there are precious few cases to point to where the absence of law has led to utter dehumanization.  In fact, it has never, in anything approaching human history, been tried.  The reason is simple: in any group of humans, there are always those who want privileged positions of power over all the other humans.

The only palpable examples where the absence of law existed are war zones, which are artificial contrivances by the very people who create the laws.  Because war is, by definition, the breakdown of normal order, the result is naturally chaos and anarchy.  To point to those situations as justification for legal systems is rather disingenuous, at best.

In fact, the vast majority of people do not need laws.  Most people live their lives blissfully uncaring about laws because they don't need them.  Any given individual is driven by a desire to be left the hell alone to go about their business of raising and providing for a family.  For the most part, legal systems impinge on that normal desire.  Policing agencies, tax authorities and government at all levels are all designed to do one thing: interfere with the individual's life.

To do that, government agencies use a complex set of ritual costumes, logos, emblems, songs, pledges, and ultimately weapons to force people to conform to an abstraction that approximates morality and ethics.  We are all indoctrinated from birth to fear those symbols and do whatever they order without question under penalty of death.  Incarceration is nothing more than a form of living death because it robs us of some amount of our lives.  However, most of the infractions encoded as law are of little consequence other than to maintain control over the individual for the profit of another individual.

For instance, drug laws do little to protect me from you.  People who do drugs do little harm to others.  One could argue that the drug user harms their family, but that is hardly the concern of society.  That is a problem for the family to address and deal with.  Others argue that the drug user is a drain on society in lost productivity and additional resources such as healthcare.

That person's productivity means absolutely nothing to society other than in the loss of tax revenue to the state.  As for additional resources used, that is only a concern in cases where society at large is robbed of productive output to pay for the drug user's needs.  If the drug user is forced to pay for his own care, how has that affected society in general?

There are many people, commonly referred to as bleeding-heart liberals, who say that it is society's responsibility to save the individual from himself.  I beg to differ.  Society's function is to provide a mutually supportive network of individuals.  If someone doesn't want to avail themselves of it, why must they be forced, except as an exercise in control exerted by people who believe they are empowered to do so?

How many times have we heard that we should respect the office, if not the man?  We are supposed to show due respect for judges, elected officials and the like by the virtue that they hide behind revered symbols.  A judge is no more qualified to determine whether I am right or wrong than any other person on the planet.  But put him in a black robe and surround him with flags and seals and seat him on a platform, and suddenly this man stands above all other humans in his ability to determine the fate of others.

Take away the symbols and these people are indistinguishable from any other sot on the street.  They are just a fallible and prone to error as any other human on Earth.  The only difference between a judge and a rapist is that the judge has been trained to manipulate a symbol called 'law'.  But it sure doesn't take a judge to know that the rapist's actions are wrong.

A policeman is no more immune from the temptation to commit crime than any other human.  But give them a silly little uniform with lots of emblems and badges and suddenly that stand apart from all other humans as enforcers of an abstraction called 'law'.  It doesn't take long before the human in the silly suit starts to think that he is more special than the rest of us because people fear the symbols he hides behind.  That feeling of power almost invariably translates into the belief that he can break the law with impunity.

These are but a few examples, but once you start pondering this problem, you quickly realize that we grant a tremendous amount of our personal power and responsibility to nothing more than symbols.

Money is a symbol, and those who accumulate a significant amount of money are perceived to be more special than the rest of us.  You can take a homeless man and a banker, have them say the exact same thing, but people will discount the homeless man while giving great weight to the banker.  The only difference between the two is a suit and some money...symbols.

Another good example: how many people do you know with college degrees that are complete boneheads? Yet how many employers would give greater weight to the degree (a symbol) over someone far smarter with an 8th grade education?  And this in spite of the fact that some of the greatest minds in history did not complete a high school level education.

Symbols run our lives, but we devote precious little time to questioning the basic assumptions behind those symbols.  Take TeeVee commercials, for instance.  Take any old actor, put them in a white lab coat and sling a stethoscope around his neck, and suddenly we imbue him with the authority to speak about our medical needs.  Put a ring on his finger and we assume he is married - take it off and we assume he is not.

Place an actor in a kitchen with a bag that has a loaf of bread and a bunch of celery sticking out of it, and we assume that they just came home from shopping, not stealing those items from their neighbor.  Put an actor in overalls and have him wipe his hands on a rag, and suddenly he's an expert on car engines and motor oil.  And worst of all, take a celebrity face and have them expound on the virtues of your product and people will give his opinion far more weight than some putz standing on a street corner.

Our entire lives are run by symbols, and more insidious, those symbols are controlled by people who want something from us that we would otherwise be unwilling to give up.  The fact of the matter is, if all authority figures were to disappear tomorrow, it wouldn't take long before life settled right back to normal.  Sure, there would be a few bad apples, but they wouldn't last long as now you and I and our friends and neighbors would start relying on each other rather than muscle-bound boneheads in silly outfits who could care less whether we lived or died - as long as they get their pension and paycheck from you.

Individuals are more than capable of running their own affairs.  Mutually supportive groups of individuals are far more effective than layers of authorities whose only motivation is to get paid for producing nothing.  The only thing that keeps us from doing away with the whole damn lot of them is symbols, and the conditioning we receive to surrender our personal power and responsibility to those symbols.

We are fast approaching an epoch in history where all the symbols that have ruled us for millennia will break down.  As we sit here, all those layers of authority are crashing down around us.  People no longer trust government.  Money is no longer all-powerful.  Laws have so far overstepped the bounds of reason that people are rejecting them out of hand.  Schools, religion, science are decaying rapidly.  Eventually, the preponderance of lies and weight of corruption will erode any last vestiges of trust in the underpinning symbols of our civilization.

What then?

We have come to a point in history when those who manipulate symbols are making a concerted effort to unify all their symbols into a worldwide power base.  At the same time, individual humans have been empowered like no other time in history.  All the while, humans are going increasingly distrustful and unwilling to surrender their power to traditional symbols because of the heavy weight of corruption behind them.

When it all collapses, as it must at this point, are we prepared to take back the individual responsibility implied by the loss of the symbolic power structure that has ruled our civilization for thousands of years?

This is an important question and one that must be widely debated over the next couple of decades.  How we answer that question will determine the course of humanity for a long time to come.  It will profoundly affect every aspect of life for our descendants.  Will we simply replace our current symbols of power with another system like it?  Or will the individual become the ultimate symbol of ethics, morality and enlightenment?

Our technology has placed power at the most democratic level possible - the individual.  This is an awesome responsibility, but also a liberating one.  We have the ability now to make each person their own legislature, judge, pope, and police.  We have the power to make each of us an authority, expert and professor.  But we can just as easily piss away the opportunity and allow the corruption to continue unabated.

Will we continue to respects the office or the person holding it?  Will we continue to allow the will of others to be forced upon us through fear of symbols?  Will we take back the responsibility to chose our own paths, and accept the consequences good or bad?  Or will we continue to abdicate that personal power out of laziness and ignorance?

The profound implications of our current epoch are mind-boggling in their breadth and scope, but the challenge before us should not stop us from thoroughly considering what we want for humanity going forward.  Our progeny will either respect us or deride us for the choices we make now.

The first step is a complete examination of the symbols we fear and submit to in our daily lives.  Is self-rule really as frightening and chaotic as we are told, or is that a fairy tale to reinforce the stranglehold on power that a very few have in our society?

Perhaps it's time we found out.

Power Is A Put-On

In the past few years, there has been a virtual tidal wave of superhero movies.  I confess to enjoying them.  I particularly like Batman.  Always have.  I like that he doesn't have super-powers.  I like Iron Man for the same reason.

But superhero movies and comic books teach us something.  They implant strong symbolic messages deep in our psyches.  In fact, one really enjoyable film is M. Night Shyamalan's 'Unbreakable,' with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson.  It gets into a lot of the meta-types and symbols in comincs.

There's something in particular that I notice about the comics.  Superheros have one particular weakness that no one ever talks about.  They have one thing that can stop them cold, but none of the bad guys ever figure it out.  And it's pretty much the same weakness in every one of them, with few exceptions.

They all need a uniform.

Think about it.  Superman has his tights.  Batman has his armor.  Iron Man has his suit.  Thor, Captain America, Spider Man...you name it.  Without their signature clothes, they are completely powerless.  If they ever use civilian clothes, and they are forced to use their power, they almost always cover it up with clumsiness and bungling.

Of course, they tell us that no one can exercise power without government support.  Batman works with Commissioner Gordon of the police.  Iron Man has his military-industrial complex support group.  Even Superman works with and supports US federal hegimony throughout the world.  But in every case, they can not project power without their uniform.

Even in 'Unbreakable,' the Willis character is a security guard with a uniform, and when he starts to realize his superpowers, he dons yet another uniform (a cape substitute using a pancho-brilliant).  Once the character begins to realize his own innate power, he resorts to projecting it through a uniform.

In fact, the only superhero I can think of who doesn't use a uniform is the Hulk.  He is a rather interesting character.  His power comes from inside himself, and when he projects it, he loses his clothes, not changes them.  He is hunted and hounded by government and military, rather than controlled, or at least in cahouts with them.  There are many layers to the Hulk that I find compelling.  However, in the end, his power comes from an accident in a government lab, and his father was a government scientist, as is Bruce Banner.  So not entirely free.

The X-Men, which involve human mutations that find themselves with great powers start to break the mold of government control, but they still have uniforms.

Even the bad guys have uniforms.  As it was so well put in 'The Dark Knight,' in a throw-away line, they wear war-paint.  They use uniforms to project and signify their power.  Even the musical themes change when the uniform comes out.  The scenes in 'Spider Man,' where his love/hate relationship with his powers are symbolically centered around the uniform.

Why do cops, soldiers and TSA goons all have uniforms?  Because we are trained to see those types of clothing as powerful.  A cop without his uniform is just another meat-head in khakis and t-shirt, just like the rest of us.  But stick him in a uniform, and he will shoot, taser and berate us by virtue of the power in his uniform.

Take a high-school dropout with little or no prospects, and who operates on barely more than automatic cognitive function.  Indoctrinate him and give him a decent paycheck and bennies, and slap a uniform on him, and you have abusive brutes.  They feel like superheroes in their nifty little tights and ID cards.  Sew a couple of patches and a flag on them, and watch out!  They have power and purpose by virtue of their togs.

Oh, and if you get the least little out of hand, they run to 'Uncle' and cry like you stuck them with a hot iron.  Then 'Uncle' comes along and beats you into submission.  If need be, 'Unicle' drags you in front of yet another uniform, a black robe animates by yet another powerless weasel, for further processing.  And the black robe uniform likes us to think that it is the highest authority, with unlimited power over life and death.

When it comes down to it, all government is, is a vast warehouse full of uniforms by which puppeteers can project power and control over the masses.  We are trained, even by things as seemingly innocuous as comics, that uniforms mean power.  Those pieces of cloth, cut and colored in a certain pattern, and placed on callous troglydites, transform normal, everyday people like us into powerful heroes defending truth, justice and the American Way.  The somewhat humerous part is that the uniform animators are even more clueless about abstract concepts like truth and justice, than the average Joe.

As for the American Way, well shucks, anyone can drop bombs and torture.  Just has a certain 'authority' to it  if the person holding the live wires to your genitals has a uniform.

Even the uniforms come in ranking levels of power.  Just put some nifty logos, pins and baubles on them, and you you have increasing layers of authority.  "I have more power than you because I have this little pin on my collar and this little stripe on my sleeve."

'Men In Black' make quite a tadoo out of uniforms.  In fact, it is the black suit that 'authorizes' them to be initiated into the inner circle.  Will Smith obtains occult information and experiences a new level of existance by simply putting on a uniform.

We are trained from birth that uniforms contain power, and convey that power onto the person wearing it.  When you are young and watch your dad kow-tow to uniforms, you learn.  When you read (hahaha!) the comics or watch the movies, you see that uniforms allow us to project power.  When you join the junior sports league, you can't play without a uniform.  When someone asked you what you wanted to be, you probably rattled off some occupation with a uniform.  I wanted  to be an astronaut, because I liked the bulky white uniforms.

The westerns were the superhero movies of yesteryear.  The good guy's uniform had a white hat and a tin star, while the bad guy's uniform was black and didn't have jewelry.  But if your uniform was buckskins and feathers, you were the ultimate baddy...or a comic drunk, if you watched F-Troop.

'Hogan's Heroes' was a comedy of uniforms.  The whole show revolved around uniforms.  All the characters had distinctive uniforms that told us something about who they are and how much power they have.

Our training is so deep that it is very hard to uninstall.  Think about it any time you confront a uniform.  What was the first feeling, not thought, you had when you saw the uniform.  Coming from Houston, I fear cop uniforms, because those uniforms killed a lot of people and beat the rest to pulp.

Uniforms are neither good nor bad, in themselves.  The important thing is becoming cognizant of how we respond to them, and how they are used to control us.  It one of the deepest and most pernicious forms of mind control today.  And it's so bleeding simple, that it's almost laughable.

It's everywhere you look, on the streets, on TeeVee, in the movies, everyone is parading uniforms as projections of power.  Without, those people are nothing.  They are just regular folks, taking out the trash and mowing the lawn.

Put a uniform on them, and everything changes.  Now they can molest you, violate your most personal liberties, and even main and kill you, all with impunity.  They have 'authority' by virtue of their clothes.

That's it.  Just clothes.

Why does Superman never fly without his uniform?  Why does Spider Man never spin a web without the official togs?  Why is Bruce Wayne just a rich, spoiled playboy until he dons the armor?

It used to be, when I was young, that officials in uniforms were outranked in every way by civilians.  Seems that has fallen by the wayside these days.

"You'll dress only in attire specially sanctioned by MiB special services. You'll conform to the identity we give you, eat where we tell you, live where we tell you. From now on you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You'll not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You're a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don't exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name. Silence your native tongue. You're no longer part of the System. You're above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We're "them." We're "they." We are the Men in Black."  - Zed

Fear And Loathing

The big weather news of the week?  No, not the dozen or so who died in a typhoon in the Phillipines, but Brad and Muffy had to flee the Hamptons for some piss-ant rain storm.  Reportedly, Muffy's hair got mussed by a mild breeze caused by the rush to evacuate.

Hunter S. Thompson would be proud.  Richard C. Hoagland calls it "fear porn," and a more apt name we are hard-pressed to develop.  It's an old trick, but it is very effective.  What is surprising is how many people fall for it, even though there are repeated examples of the manipulation.

The use of fear as a weapon is a simple, yet effective tactic.  It is the basis of the concept of 'terrorism,' which is to frighten people to the point of submission.  The reason terrorism can ONLY be government sponsored is that people's fear response doesn't serve any other interest.

People, despite all our sophistication, have basic and primitive responses to certain stimulae.  One of the strongest and most basic is the fear response.  When faced with a threat, people will automatically 'circle the wagons.'  There's an instinctual rally behind leaders and a desire to protect vulnerable individuals and institutions.  Not that the instinct is bad, but the manipulation of it for socio/political ends is quite evil.

As a technique for manipulating large groups of people, the concept is very old.  Even the telling of ghost stories around the camp fire is a means of keeping more impressionable souls close to camp.  After a good ghost story, kids won't wander off in the night, to fall prey to accident or attack.

On a larger scale, such thinkers as Sun Tsu and Machiavelli wrote at length on the use of fear for political and strategic goals.  Using imaginary, manufactured or even actual enemies is a tool that causes the masses to cling to 'thought leaders' and gate-keepers' (politicians and media) to receive 'information' on how to react, and 'protection' from the threat.

A prime example of this technique in practice is the recent events surrounding hurricane Irene.  Anyone who has sufficient experience with big storms knows that you lock down for hurricanes and run from tornadoes.  One assumes that 'experts' would know this.  So why the week and a half of fear mongering and orders to flee?  It can only serve one purpose, that of generating fear in the masses and causing them to turn to PTB and media as the purveyors of 'information' and 'protection.'

The same technique was used quite effectively on a global basis after 9/11.  The fear of an unforeseen attack by mysterious enemies capable of destroying large and unthinkable targets has caused a global fear instinct to kick in that is still reverberating 10 years later.  The use of that fear has caused great numbers of people to willingly hand over their personal power and responsibility to a group of self-serving power mongers.

Even things as small as 'Amber Alerts' serve the PTB.  Amber Alerts are a program of media warnings in the US that are triggered when a child is reported missing.  Children, of course, are the most effective tool of those who would make the masses submit.  The idea of a child in danger causes and very strong and primitive reaction in people to drop what they are doing and circle the wagons, waiting for word from the 'authorities.'  It is very subtly fed to people by inducing the fear of 'it could happen to your child.'

Children are used by the PTB to create some of the most egregious violations of personal freedom known to Man.  Organizations such as 'Child Protective Services,' which are nothing they claim to be in that name, get other people to feel justified and proper in stealing people's children and farming them out to the highest bidders.

So-called 'public education' functions on the fear that your child won't have a chance in the 'real' world if they don't receive the full 12 years of indoctrination at the hands of evil manipulators.  This is despite the fact that some of the greatest thinkers in history had little or no 'formal' education.  Sitting in a classroom no more guarantees an education than having an open book on your desk, yet the fear that your child will be deprived causes you to submit your child to the brain butchers.

Mass vaccinations operate on fear.  If you don't take the jab, you will die a horrible and painful death from some vicious disease, even though more people statistically drown in buckets of water every year, than die of the supposed plague du jour being used to 'fear' you into submission.

The Cold War, global warming, nuclear holocaust, viral epidemics, killer storms, cometary impacts and the like are all tools of fear-mongering that are in play in our culture.  Who benefits from the fear that is generated?  Why, the very people who are telling us to be afraid, of course.

Fear of poverty keeps the middle classes in line.  Fear of Second Comings and Eternal Damnation keep the faithful in line.  Fear of depriving our children of some vague opportunity keeps parents in line.  Fear of death keeps nearly everyone in line.

There is a reason that the great adepts have all, without exception, taught that conquering fear is the first and most important step in freeing ourselves from bondage.  When we no longer act out of fear and subdue our innate panic response, then we are finally free to open our minds to greater Truths and Spiritual Development.

The Truth shall set us free, and the Truth is, there is nothing to fear.

We must train ourselves to stop acting without reasoning first.  It's not easy.  There are very primitive parts of our brains that startle at the unknown.  We create phantoms in our minds that cause us waste our lives reacting to possibilities, rather than focusing on reality.

It is fear that causes us to surrender our personal responsibility to anyone who presents themselves as a 'leader,' when in fact those 'leaders' are using their knowledge of the truth to present themselves as fearless.  It's a vicious circle that keeps us submissive and subservient to those who generate and manipulate fear as a weapon.

Observation of animals will quickly inform us about the basic human condition.  That lemmings will panic en masse and follow each other over a cliff is a trite but effective metaphor.  Both sheep and cows are excellent examples of blind submission to 'leaders.'  The Judas goat is a classic example.  The goat is trained to walk through the corral, and the sheep blindly follow it to their certain doom, or at least a good sheering.  A herd of thousands of cows can be managed by a handful of cowboys by simply guiding the lead cow.

In human 'society,' the lead cow is called a 'news anchor.'  It is their job to boldly march into butcher's hands, and they willingly do so because they know they will be spared to lead the next group.  Those who follow, though, are not so lucky.

There is hope.  Stories about people ignoring evacuation orders and going to the beaches despite threats of punishment and certain doom tells us that the power of the 'opinion leaders' is waning.  After all, the right of the individual to do anything they want to themselves is supreme above all other powers.  If Joe Sixpack wants to ride the storm surge on his boogy board, so be it.  If a man wants to ride out a storm on his property to protect it from looters and public 'authorities,' more power to him.  These people are taking personal risks that they feel are warranted, for whatever reason and reward they perceive.

Anyone who invests in the markets knows that the greater the financial risk, the greater the reward.  It is the fear of loss or ruin that keeps most people out of such things.  Those who take the risks are personally responsible for informing themselves of the benefits and dangers of such actions.  It is not for us to decide whether or not they should take those risks, and it is not for us to mediate their losses, should they fail to properly calculate the risks.

In the same way, it is not for us to decide if a storm is dangerous or not for any given individual.  That is their choice.  They have information on storm tracks, wind speeds and expected rainfall.  They, as reasoning beings, are personally responsible for deciding to stay put or flee, and they must accept both rewards and losses for their decisions.

If we find this a reasonable argument, then what can possibly be the benefit to some group to inculcate fear in large groups of people?

Training mass numbers of people to respond in certain ways makes them predicable, and thus controllable.  It also keeps them from depending on themselves and their friends and families.  Rather, it indoctrinates them into the concept of clinging to 'thought leaders' and 'gate-keepers' as sole arbiters of right action.  When people are afraid, they follow anyone who appears to have an idea what to do.  It causes us to doubt our own capacity to decide the odds and what we should do to mitigate risk.

We are implanted with 'behavioral templates' in the media that cause us to use pre-programmed responses to various stimulae.    The PTB use this for their entertainment.  It's amusing to them to herb masses around and watch the terror in their eyes as they run from a summer rain hardly more than a Texas gully-washer.

Anyone who has faced their fear and survived knows the feeling of empowerment it brings.  If the Self can conquer the animal flight instinct and face down the things that makes Self afraid, then Self is rewarded with the knowledge that Self is powerful and capable and independent.

That is the greatest fear of those who would control us.  That we should become empowered and conquer our fear and learn self-reliance makes us impossible to control, impossible to herd.  The empowered individual does not need a leader, he IS the leader.  He doesn't need to pay taxes, or depend on government agencies and hand-outs.  He is his own authority.  He doesn't need to share his reward and doesn't ask others to re-mediate his losses.

Does that sound like the kind of individual that governments and 'authorities' try to create?  Or does the quivering, indecisive lump of fearful animal flesh seem more to their liking?

Despite all his faults, FDR did come out with a great line that is worth remembering: "There is nothing to fear, but Fear Itself."  Knowledge that we are eternal beings incapable of real death, and fearless in the face of danger, real or imagined, is the remedy to our current predicament.

Those who stand and fight, whether natural or man-made dangers, are self-empowered and self-reliant, and truly free individuals. 

The PTB are deathly afraid of one thing, the self-actualized human being.  Their power, wealth and control are completely and inextricably dependent on our fear.  Whether it's religions, political institutions or just plain bullies, they eat fear and thrive on it.  The complete lack of fear is kryptonite to their super-powers.

Ask yourself this: Why do the 'authorities' tell everyone to run, but allow supercilious air-heads to remain in the face of danger to report it to us?  Very simple.  It creates in our minds the impression that the media have the favor of the 'authorities,' and we instinctively admire their bravery and fearlessness in the face of certain doom.  We, therefore, naturally transfer our allegiance to the media because they have no fear, whether of Nature or 'authorities'.  Thus, we become willing pawns of the PTB mouthpieces.

Every time someone tells you to fear and run, the first question in your mind should be, "Why?  What do you have to gain from my fear?"  That simple thought deflates their power and brings them down to our level.  Don't be fooled by follow-on stories about the folks who didn't listen and died.  People always die.  It is the nature of life.  It is no less tragic, but it should not cause us fear.

Freedom comes through two tasks.  Uninstall the fear, and conquer it's cousin, guilt.  If we deprogram those two things, then we are powerful and free.  The hardest part is accepting the consequences of our actions, no matter what our choices.

The true heroes are the ones who stand and face their fears, not the uniformed baboons who show up later to clean up the mess.

Wig-Flipping And Other Notes

America has finally gone 'round the bend.

The entire country is in receivership, Japanese radiation is wafting overhead, the Middle East is in revolution, Europe is cratering, and Asia is literally falling apart at the seems, and the headline in today's Jakarta Post?

"Man Leaves Child To Play Ninja"

Yup, seems cops and busybodies in Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, have nothing better to do than arrest a man in the park wearing black.  They later claim he left his 4-year-old son alone while he was out jogging (in black clothes).  So, for lack of ANYTHING better to do, they threw him in prison and charged him with 'child endangerment.'

Looks to me like the only people endangering the child is the government of Scottsdale.

Though the article fails to say, I can imagine that those fascist pigs put the man's son in 'protective custody' with foster parents, who have a long and stellar history of mental, physical and sexual abuse.  Furthermore, they have stripped the child from his father and everything he knows and they call that 'protection.'

I loathe CPS, busybody government agents and hack-booted thugs.  The people who should rightfully be in jail are the ones who are truly endangering the child: intrusive and over-whelming government know-it-alls.

You see...here's how it's supposed to work: you commit a crime, you are tried and convicted, you are sent to jail.  This poor father was accused after the fact of endangering a child, yet the child is (or was before the slimeballs came), and in fact there was no crime committed.  You can not be charged with what might have been.

Michael Jackson holding his baby over a balcony railing and showing it off to waiting press was child endangerment.  A man jogging in the park while his kid slept is not, no matter what color clothes he was wearing.

You see, that's the problem in a nutshell.  People are jailed for crimes that MIGHT have happened and priorities are completely and utterly backwards.

Had the man's child been harmed or killed, he could have been charged with manslaughter.  But leaving his kid to sleep while he gets in a quick jog is not a crime.  If you don't like leaving your kids alone, then don't, but that doesn't make it a crime when I do.

It's like the whole madness with 'hate crime.'  If I kill someone, it's murder whether I hated the person or it was cold blood.  Because I kill someone for being green makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to the nature of the crime.  In fact, all crime is hate crime at some level or another.  And hate speech is the absolutely right of every human being on Earth.  Every individual has the right to speak their mind, regardless of whether I like the message or not.

If someone kills a Jew because Hitler claims the Jews are scum, then the person who commits the crime is the killer, not Hitler.  Hitler only spoke his mind.  But, if Hitler orders the killing of a Jew directly, then both Hitler and the killer are at fault.

If a preacher says his religion condemns homosexuality and that church refuses to allow homosexuals to join, that's their prerogative.  It's called the right of free association.  But, if a member of the church assaults a homosexual, then the assailant is at fault.  If the preacher tells his flock to assault homosexuals because they are evil, then both are at fault.

Very simple concepts, really.  If nothing is lost and no one is injured, there can be no crime.  Anything else is just a scene out of "Minority Report."  A crime can not be prevented, it either happens or it doesn't.  The whole concept of crime prevention is a myth perpetrated by a massive incarceration industry whose business model is to process every human being on Earth through the system to generate profits.

This whole concept leads to something called 'political correctness.'  PC is nothing more than fascism repackaged and relabeled to be more palatable, since Hitler put a dirty image on it.  No matter how you wrap it, though, it is an attempt to control not only how we think, but what we think.  It is vital to a healthy society to be able to express any idea, no matter how distasteful it may be to you or me.  If we start putting limits on what I can say or think, then the flood gate is open and all thought is on the chopping block, to mix a few metaphors.

At one time, Galileo Galilei was a radical thinker.  He took what he saw, objects that didn't revolve around Earth, and expressed it as the idea that the Earth wasn't the center of the Universe.  Today, we accept that as axiomatic, but he was condemned to house arrest for life and excommunicated by the Catholic Church for daring to challenge the existing paradigm.

Mahatma Ghandi was persecuted and hounded to the end of his days by the British Empire for his desire to live in a country that was free of control from some outside power who had no interest in the welfare of the people.

Si Pitung was made into a criminal and hunted like an animal by the Dutch, who stole the wealth of Indonesia to support their lifestyles and because they were too damn cheap to buy what they needed.  Now-a-days, Si Pitung is a hero of Indonesian folk lore, much like Robin Hood.

Things like independent American states existing outside the iron-fisted rule of a tyrannical federal empire is only inconceivable because it changes the paradigm we have had pounded into our brains since birth, such that we can not conceive of any other way to go.  The time has come to not only think of, but try another way.

All governments lie.  The recent Japanese situation is case in point.  That they lie and fail to protect their citizens, which is their primary function and the reason we create them for ourselves.  As so many fine thinkers throughout history have rightly pointed out, when governments fail to do the one task they are charged with, then it is time to get rid of them.

One poor guy in Pennsylvania was doing his own thing and is now rotting in jail.  He can't care for his child in that situation.  He is a victim of a nanny state that has grown to the point where it destroys its citizens to prove that they are worth destroying.  It is a fallacious and evil form of ruling class that would do this.

The scum who call themselves government agents, and whose primary purpose is to protect society from thugs such as banksters and other profound threats to freedom, is instead aiding and abetting the evil, and perpetrating the crimes of the mobsters upon the innocent citizens.

The time has come to not only conceive of, but institute a new way of thinking...a new paradigm.  It is time for families to resume watching their own and not letting faceless, brainless thugs tell us how to live, and by extention perpetrate the very crimes that they charge us normal human beings with.

The most vital and powerful tool at our disposal is the power to ignore and castigate those who would make us their slaves.  But, it also requires us to change our mode of thinking.  We can not enforce on others the standards that we hold for ourselves.  Sure, maybe you wouldn't leave your child to go out and jog, but that does NOT give you the right to tell another what they can do.  If the child is injured in any way, then there is a crime that is punishable.  Otherwise, bug off and let sleeping dogs lie.

Besides, has anything happened to the man's child, his own conscience would be the ultimate punishment, as he must live with the consequence of his action until the end of his days.

To each his own.  I'll let you be stupid and irresponsible, if you piss off and let me do the same.  If my actions cause loss or injury to another, then we have an argument.  Otherwise, keep your authoritarian fascist slimy hands off of me and mine.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me.  But, being reasonable seems to be in very short supply these days.

Nina bobo, nina bobo.  Kalo tidak bobo, digigit nyemuk.

Sampai jumpa!