I get tired of ignorance. It leads to a lot of damage that could be avoided.
Ignorance is not being dumb, stupid, or lacking intelligence. It is being uninformed through your own actions or inactions. This too often leads to making claims, decisions, or professing things which simply make no sense in the final analysis.
Most recently the ignorance that has driven me to distraction is the idea that laws prevent criminals or irrational people from doing criminal or irrational things. In reality laws only "may" allow a criminal or irrational person to be apprehended "after" they have done a criminal or irrational act. Why after? Because the criminal or irrational mindset is that they will either never be caught or they simply can't think beyond the act itself to what the final outcome will be.
So fundamentally laws only impede the actions of law abiding or rational thinking people who connect their actions with an eventual and logical outcome. Laws affect the very people who are not a problem because they are already predisposed to not do harmful, irrational, or ciminal things in the first place. Let's consider drinking and driving. Of course I am referring to drinking alcohol.
The rational or non-criminal person knows this is a bad idea and would not set about to do this. Why? Because it is an unsafe thing to do, could cause harm to others, and beside all of this it is illegal. The irrational or criminal person on the other hand thinks nothing of the safety risk, does not consider the harm they might do to someone else, and since they are sure they will never be caught they are not detered by the legal issues.
Now an ignorant person might think that making alcohol illegal could put a stop to the dangers of drinking and driving. Of course if this is true prohibition would have worked. The making, sale and distribution of alcohol was illegal during prohibition. Strangely enough the only real affect was on people who were law abiding citizens. Why? Because the criminal element and irrational people disregarded the law as they always do. There is nothing really surprising about that. It is the way they think and to believe otherwise is simple ignorance. The end result with prohibition was that the criminal element became rich, and the irrational people kept drinking and driving among other things.
Ultimately it became clear that prohibition does not work.
Flash forward to the present and we are once again on the verge of a form of prohibition and the same ignorace of reality is being demonstrated yet again. Laws are being proposed that will only really affect the very people who are not a threat, and will do nothing with regard to the people who are potentially a threat. Nothing that is except the known truth that the new laws will ultimately make criminals rich and leave the rest of use all the worse for repeating and experiment that has failed time and time again.
I get tired of people failing to educate themselves on the way the world really works and how people really think and operate. Laws are not there to deter criminals but only to remove them from society after they have committed a crime. Laws really only do the same thing with respect to irrational people, because they do not consider the consequences of their actions. Ultimately there is no law that can stop an irrational peoson from doing something the first time.
I believe it has been said many times that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and continuing to expect a different outcome.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Natural Consquences
When raising kids there are a couple of things parents depend upon. One is "natural consequences."
Natural consequences are the perfectly natural and spontaneous outcome of decisions our children make. For example, if you grab something that is hot you get burned. This is a natural consequence and teaches us to be careful about grabbing things.
Tuesday's general election will have natural consequences. There is no doubt about the agenda of the Obama administration and the liberals who run the Democratic party. They have bought yet another election by promising more to people which will drive the country deeper into debt. I don't want to see people barely making it from paycheck to paycheck either, but bankrupting the country isn't a solution. This incessant borrowing of money that we can't afford to borrow is the kind of thing that will destroy everything.
Unfortunately there are a substantial number of people (generally reported to be over 40%) who pay no taxes whatsoever and therefore see nothing wrong with the government handing out more money. Why? Because it doesn't come out of their pockets.
I was figuring the other day that between Federal Income Tax, State Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax, Vehicle Taxes, Medicare, and Social Security about half of everything I earn is taken away by one tax or another. That might even be OK if someone was actually benefitting from this, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Why? Because most of the taxes that are collected from me don't actually pay for any services. What? That's right.
Most of the taxes I pay are actually paying interest on loans the government has received to pay for all that stuff the taxes wouldn't cover. The government has essentially been writing checks with no money in the bank. If we did that we be facing serious jail time, but when the government does it they consider it a "stimulus."
Natural consequences are the perfectly natural and spontaneous outcome of decisions our children make. For example, if you grab something that is hot you get burned. This is a natural consequence and teaches us to be careful about grabbing things.
Tuesday's general election will have natural consequences. There is no doubt about the agenda of the Obama administration and the liberals who run the Democratic party. They have bought yet another election by promising more to people which will drive the country deeper into debt. I don't want to see people barely making it from paycheck to paycheck either, but bankrupting the country isn't a solution. This incessant borrowing of money that we can't afford to borrow is the kind of thing that will destroy everything.
Unfortunately there are a substantial number of people (generally reported to be over 40%) who pay no taxes whatsoever and therefore see nothing wrong with the government handing out more money. Why? Because it doesn't come out of their pockets.
I was figuring the other day that between Federal Income Tax, State Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax, Vehicle Taxes, Medicare, and Social Security about half of everything I earn is taken away by one tax or another. That might even be OK if someone was actually benefitting from this, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Why? Because most of the taxes that are collected from me don't actually pay for any services. What? That's right.
Most of the taxes I pay are actually paying interest on loans the government has received to pay for all that stuff the taxes wouldn't cover. The government has essentially been writing checks with no money in the bank. If we did that we be facing serious jail time, but when the government does it they consider it a "stimulus."
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Conservatism and Religous Fundamentalism
People confuse and interchange these two "isims" regularly. It's not just Liberals who do it either. Conservative and Religious Fundamentalists are also guilty. I've thought about this a lot, and its not completely clear just exactly how Religious Fundamentalism became so bound to Conservatism.
The basic principle underpinning Conservatism is minimal government that stays out of the way of the people to the maximum extent possible. A conservative government would only do those things that abolutely need to be done as opposed to doing things one group or another "want" the government to do.
In this regard, the government's primary role is to preserve, protect and defend the United States Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. That includes providing for the common defense. This is because the United States Constitution is the basis for everything else in the United States. It is simply not the role of the government to be our baby sitter, our Santa Claus, our mommy, our daddy, our minister or our big sister.
The basics of conservatism is that we take personal responsibility for our actions. We are responsible for putting food on our table, raising our own kids, making sure that we take care of our property and deal with others on an honest basis.
Religious Fundamentalism has at its core the idea that there is some basic religious truth which is known only to a particular group or sect and must somehow be imposed on everyone else for their own good or salvation. Religious Fundamentalism would dictate that the government needs to do certain things to further the good that comes from this ultimate truth and leads to a government that does more than actually needs to be done.
The problem happens when people who are religious fundamentalists claim to be conservatives. To bolster this claim they identify with certain conservative principles but ignore the fact that they are at odds with the basis for conservatism. That is, they want the government to do things that a government does not need nor should it be doing.
Let's take a simple example. Marriage. Now let's really be objective about it. Short of establishing some minimum age at which people can marry without parental consent to protect against child abuse, what business is it of the government regarding who can marry? Conservative principles would indicate that the United States Constituion is not placed at risk with regard to who gets married. Marriage is an issue of religion. However, since there are many Religious Fundamentalists who claim to be conservatives and also claim that it is the governments business regarding who gets married, people think this is a conservative principle. It's not. It is a misrepresentation of the conservative principle by people who have hitched their wagon to the name without really embracing the concept.
Someone who claims to be conservative but wants government to do something that government does not need to be doing is no different from a Liberal who is trying to turn the government into a glorified baby sitter for us all.
A conservative would not care who gets married as long as the United States Consitution is not being attacked, and as long as the government is not infringing upon religious freedoms.
Conservatism and Relgious Fundamentalism are two different things and its about time someone pointed it out.
The basic principle underpinning Conservatism is minimal government that stays out of the way of the people to the maximum extent possible. A conservative government would only do those things that abolutely need to be done as opposed to doing things one group or another "want" the government to do.
In this regard, the government's primary role is to preserve, protect and defend the United States Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. That includes providing for the common defense. This is because the United States Constitution is the basis for everything else in the United States. It is simply not the role of the government to be our baby sitter, our Santa Claus, our mommy, our daddy, our minister or our big sister.
The basics of conservatism is that we take personal responsibility for our actions. We are responsible for putting food on our table, raising our own kids, making sure that we take care of our property and deal with others on an honest basis.
Religious Fundamentalism has at its core the idea that there is some basic religious truth which is known only to a particular group or sect and must somehow be imposed on everyone else for their own good or salvation. Religious Fundamentalism would dictate that the government needs to do certain things to further the good that comes from this ultimate truth and leads to a government that does more than actually needs to be done.
The problem happens when people who are religious fundamentalists claim to be conservatives. To bolster this claim they identify with certain conservative principles but ignore the fact that they are at odds with the basis for conservatism. That is, they want the government to do things that a government does not need nor should it be doing.
Let's take a simple example. Marriage. Now let's really be objective about it. Short of establishing some minimum age at which people can marry without parental consent to protect against child abuse, what business is it of the government regarding who can marry? Conservative principles would indicate that the United States Constituion is not placed at risk with regard to who gets married. Marriage is an issue of religion. However, since there are many Religious Fundamentalists who claim to be conservatives and also claim that it is the governments business regarding who gets married, people think this is a conservative principle. It's not. It is a misrepresentation of the conservative principle by people who have hitched their wagon to the name without really embracing the concept.
Someone who claims to be conservative but wants government to do something that government does not need to be doing is no different from a Liberal who is trying to turn the government into a glorified baby sitter for us all.
A conservative would not care who gets married as long as the United States Consitution is not being attacked, and as long as the government is not infringing upon religious freedoms.
Conservatism and Relgious Fundamentalism are two different things and its about time someone pointed it out.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
I Couldn't Listen to the State of the Union Speech
I said couldn't as opposed to didn't. Why couldn't I listen to the State of the Union speech? Because I could not tolerate hearing even one more lie.
I could not bear to hear about any new jobs being created while knowing that no such thing was happening. I could not tolerate hearing how the economy was getting better while knowing it is just as bad as ever and getting worse. I could not tolerate hearing about unemployment numbers getting better while knowing the numbers are better because some people have simply fallen off of the unemployment benefit rolls without finding a job. I could not tolerate hearing unemployment is 8-point-whatever while knowing the reality is 18, 19, or 20%. I could not tolerate hearing about any cuts in government spending while knowing government spending is higher than it has ever been and going up. I could not tolerate hearing how we are going to reduce the debt or the deficit while we have done nothing but increase it every year.
Most of all I could not tolerate listening to all the lies while knowing that there would be people all over the country that were believing this garbage.
Have you ever seen the movie Idiocracy? If not, go find it and watch it. It's us.
I could not bear to hear about any new jobs being created while knowing that no such thing was happening. I could not tolerate hearing how the economy was getting better while knowing it is just as bad as ever and getting worse. I could not tolerate hearing about unemployment numbers getting better while knowing the numbers are better because some people have simply fallen off of the unemployment benefit rolls without finding a job. I could not tolerate hearing unemployment is 8-point-whatever while knowing the reality is 18, 19, or 20%. I could not tolerate hearing about any cuts in government spending while knowing government spending is higher than it has ever been and going up. I could not tolerate hearing how we are going to reduce the debt or the deficit while we have done nothing but increase it every year.
Most of all I could not tolerate listening to all the lies while knowing that there would be people all over the country that were believing this garbage.
Have you ever seen the movie Idiocracy? If not, go find it and watch it. It's us.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
What do you really want?
This is something that has been on my mind for a long time, but I'm still not sure I can explain it. Let me start with a quote from a famous speech by Rev. Martin Luther King. He said something I hear almost every morning, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Many people claim to want this although they may be thinking about things other than "the color of their skin." Instead the issue for them may be their religion, their life style, their social position, their financial position, or any of a number of things.
Yet while they claim to just want to be judged "by the content of their character" they too often demonstrate by their actions that they want the exact opposite.
Any time we think that some group with which we feel we are associated should be treated in a particular way we are guilty of the very problem that Dr. King dreamed would one day be gone. You see, to be judged by the content of your character is to give up being treated as a group. It is marked by the desire to be treated as an individual who stands on his or her own.
Discrimination is discrimination. It is a process of treating people as groups rather than as individual people of character. It is every bit as much discrimination to do something for people because of their group status as it is to reject them because of their group status. There is no such thing as reverse discrimination. The opposite of discrimination is only the lack of discrimination in any form whether it be for or against.
I've never really counted myself as part of any group. Maybe someone else counted me that way (which would be discrimination), but I didn't.
The day I graduated from high School, over 41 years ago, a Hispanic group gave a scholarship to one of the Hispanic kids in our school. A Black group gave a scholarship to one of the Black kids in our school. A Portuguese group gave a scholarship to one of the Portuguese kids in our school. And on and on. I wasn't any of those. Looking back on it I feel sorry for those people who found it necessary to not just judge people by "the content of their character."
The world might be a whole lot better off if we all just reated each other as individuals, but I think that was the dream.
Many people claim to want this although they may be thinking about things other than "the color of their skin." Instead the issue for them may be their religion, their life style, their social position, their financial position, or any of a number of things.
Yet while they claim to just want to be judged "by the content of their character" they too often demonstrate by their actions that they want the exact opposite.
Any time we think that some group with which we feel we are associated should be treated in a particular way we are guilty of the very problem that Dr. King dreamed would one day be gone. You see, to be judged by the content of your character is to give up being treated as a group. It is marked by the desire to be treated as an individual who stands on his or her own.
Discrimination is discrimination. It is a process of treating people as groups rather than as individual people of character. It is every bit as much discrimination to do something for people because of their group status as it is to reject them because of their group status. There is no such thing as reverse discrimination. The opposite of discrimination is only the lack of discrimination in any form whether it be for or against.
I've never really counted myself as part of any group. Maybe someone else counted me that way (which would be discrimination), but I didn't.
The day I graduated from high School, over 41 years ago, a Hispanic group gave a scholarship to one of the Hispanic kids in our school. A Black group gave a scholarship to one of the Black kids in our school. A Portuguese group gave a scholarship to one of the Portuguese kids in our school. And on and on. I wasn't any of those. Looking back on it I feel sorry for those people who found it necessary to not just judge people by "the content of their character."
The world might be a whole lot better off if we all just reated each other as individuals, but I think that was the dream.
Friday, December 23, 2011
I have not posted anything in a long time. There are a few reasons for this. One is that I figure no one cares what I have to say. I was just saying it to get it off my mind. Another was having more of a focus on things transpiring within our immediate family. A third thing was a matter of just wondering why I should bother.
Well, here I am. Some of the questions and concerns remain unanswered and will probably stay that way.
I just want to say that I realize there are some good people in this world even though there are some who are not so good. Unfortunately the people who are not so good get all the attention. That's because they do some really bad things. In the mean time there are good people who do small good things every year, month, week and even daily and get no attention at all.
These are the people who pay somone else's grocery bill without being asked. They pick up litter dropped by other uncaring people. They wait at the stop sign to let someone else go ahead. They get their work done every day without complaining. They do something to let another person know they are cared about.
To all the good people out there who don't get any recognition. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your efforts have been noticed and appreciated.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
Well, here I am. Some of the questions and concerns remain unanswered and will probably stay that way.
I just want to say that I realize there are some good people in this world even though there are some who are not so good. Unfortunately the people who are not so good get all the attention. That's because they do some really bad things. In the mean time there are good people who do small good things every year, month, week and even daily and get no attention at all.
These are the people who pay somone else's grocery bill without being asked. They pick up litter dropped by other uncaring people. They wait at the stop sign to let someone else go ahead. They get their work done every day without complaining. They do something to let another person know they are cared about.
To all the good people out there who don't get any recognition. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your efforts have been noticed and appreciated.
Oh, and Merry Christmas!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Tragedy in Tucson
Christina Green was buried yesterday. She was born 9/11/2001. She and five others died at the hands of Jarred Loughner on 1/8/2011. It has been a tragedy.
Could it have been avoided? Perhaps. Can such tragedies always be avoided or prevented? No.
The only way to be perfectly safe in this world is to live in a box, do nothing, say nothing, experience nothing and interact with no one. Sounds like being dead, doesn’t it?
We are not in this world to be safe. We are in this world to live our lives to whatever extent we can. There is no such thing as complete safety or security and anyone who promises you these is really just trying to put you in that box before your time. In the mean time, there are those who will claim to be trying to make you safe and secure by keeping you from communicating your real feelings. They will try to keep you from hearing the real feelings of others. They will also try to take away the defenses that the government is not supposed to prevent you from having.
Someone who tries to kill twenty people will not be hindered by laws. There are laws against murder, after all, and we see how effective that was on the 8th of January. More laws and more restrictions on the good citizens of this country will not prevent something like this from happening again.
Consider this, all the law abiding citizens that were present had no intention of killing anyone that day. They could have been armed but they chose not to be. Why? There were probably a lot of reasons. Did any of them consider that they might someday find themselves as the only sane armed person in a position to save the life of a 9 year old child? Probably not. Did it ever occur to any of them that when seconds count the police would be minutes away? Probably not. Did it ever occur to them that someone capable of perpetrating such a heinous criminal act is not going to obey the law? No. Did it ever occur to them that some people really are psychopaths, are completely disconnected from the feelings of others, and don’t live in the same world they live in? Highly unlikely.
Ultimately, the shooter is to blame for his actions. At the same time every sane person in that crowd that day are to blame for their own ignorance, selfishness and cowardice in regard to being prepared, if necessary, to save the life of an innocent person. Of course they might say that they have a moral objection to killing someone. Well, standing there and doing nothing while 6 people were killed has the same effect as pulling the trigger. In Nazi Germany, those who stood by and did nothing made it possible for millions to be put to death.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. – Edmund Burke
Could it have been avoided? Perhaps. Can such tragedies always be avoided or prevented? No.
The only way to be perfectly safe in this world is to live in a box, do nothing, say nothing, experience nothing and interact with no one. Sounds like being dead, doesn’t it?
We are not in this world to be safe. We are in this world to live our lives to whatever extent we can. There is no such thing as complete safety or security and anyone who promises you these is really just trying to put you in that box before your time. In the mean time, there are those who will claim to be trying to make you safe and secure by keeping you from communicating your real feelings. They will try to keep you from hearing the real feelings of others. They will also try to take away the defenses that the government is not supposed to prevent you from having.
Someone who tries to kill twenty people will not be hindered by laws. There are laws against murder, after all, and we see how effective that was on the 8th of January. More laws and more restrictions on the good citizens of this country will not prevent something like this from happening again.
Consider this, all the law abiding citizens that were present had no intention of killing anyone that day. They could have been armed but they chose not to be. Why? There were probably a lot of reasons. Did any of them consider that they might someday find themselves as the only sane armed person in a position to save the life of a 9 year old child? Probably not. Did it ever occur to any of them that when seconds count the police would be minutes away? Probably not. Did it ever occur to them that someone capable of perpetrating such a heinous criminal act is not going to obey the law? No. Did it ever occur to them that some people really are psychopaths, are completely disconnected from the feelings of others, and don’t live in the same world they live in? Highly unlikely.
Ultimately, the shooter is to blame for his actions. At the same time every sane person in that crowd that day are to blame for their own ignorance, selfishness and cowardice in regard to being prepared, if necessary, to save the life of an innocent person. Of course they might say that they have a moral objection to killing someone. Well, standing there and doing nothing while 6 people were killed has the same effect as pulling the trigger. In Nazi Germany, those who stood by and did nothing made it possible for millions to be put to death.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. – Edmund Burke
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