Month: April 2016

I think that is the best short phrase to describe the combination of free markets, free trade, and the protection of property rights which commonly gets denominated “Capitalism”.  Capital-ism, of course, is Marx’s term, by which he intended to critique it.  The word implies that only those with money get anything, that those with the gold make the rules, that it is a system by and for those with money.  He may as well have named his book “On Plutocracy”.

In reality, the aim is that EVERYONE becomes a “Capitalist”, that the artist figures out how to paint full time, the car mechanic the way to open his or her own shop, the entrepreneur funds his own venture, etc.  The triumph of large business, of the large multinational corporations is a symptom of economic illiberalism.  It is the outcome of socialist policies which make the hurdles to saving money and opening ones own business insuperable for all but the most insanely determined.  It is vastly easier even now to start a new business in America than virtually anywhere in the world.  A just, fair, liberal order is in fact a “nation of shopkeepers”.  I will note that Napoleon, who intended that as an insult of the British, founded his own reign on aggressive imperialistic wars, mass theft, mass murder, open and pervasive rape, and caused the deaths of millions.  And for this, they erected a monument to him.  Such are the French.  Such is the lack of principle, of decency, of moral clarity, which we see in the modern world.

If one can rationalize the Arc de Triomphe, WHY NOT the murder of a hundred million by Communists?  Napoleon and Pol Pot no doubt both meant well.

The point I intended to make, though–I am here following a long path of not following a path–is that one can easily make the following accurate juxtapositions:

Economic Liberalism aims to generalize and increase wealth; Socialism aims to freeze wealth creation, and spread around what already exists.

Economic Liberalism seeks to foster structural economic investment; Socialism seeks to punish it through regulation and taxes.

Economic Liberalism seeks to harness the power of self interest on the part of those capable of creating wealth; Socialism harnesses the power of self interest solely of government bureaucrats, who are capable only of destroying wealth.

Economic Liberalism seeks to foster innovation and efficiency; Socialism seeks a permanent social hierarchy consisting of the ruled and the rulers.  Witness Cuba.  North Korea.  “Social democracy” is merely a slower version of this same process.  It maintains the illusion much longer.

In my own view, OF COURSE it is bad that massive corporations have in large measure corrupted our election process.  But who made it such a rich prize?  In what respect does increasing the power of government not make the process of corruption that much more tempting, that much more lucrative?  If we make it largely economically irrelevant who the President is, who is in Congress, then the money will leave politics all on its own.  Passing laws won’t do shit.  Smart people will find ways around any laws we might pass.  The problem is the temptation.  Drugs are illegal too.

This is a really useful question I have been using lately.  When my computer crashes, it reminds me of all the things I can control, like software updates, investing in new hardware.  When I forget my password, it reminds me that I have the ability to write my passwords down.  When someone cuts me off in traffic, or acts like an idiot, it reminds me that self driving machines–auto-mobiles–are and remain a miracle, and that whatever minor inconveniences I may suffer, they are suffered in a place I control, which is climate controlled, and where I have many books and much music I can listen to at the touch of a button.

If it is a person, ask yourself how you contributed to the situation.  Usually you will find you did.  You thought they ought to understand; you thought they ought to have known better; you thought they should have reacted differently.  But if you are honest, you will realize that you did not use skills you had, out of laziness or complacency.  Or ignorance: the corrective is study.  I know how to deal with people, but I don’t always follow the rules I know.  I think it ought to be easier.  I shouldn’t have to treat them as if they are imbeciles, or lacking in balls, or constantly looking for a new pissing contest.  But many people are.  Why should it be easier?  It is what it is, and I betray my own childishness in pretending otherwise. If I am failing to control what I can control, then I have no right to whine, and even if I am, it remains what it is, so I can ALWAYS control my reaction.  None of us are truly helpless, even in the worst situations.

Literally every problem I have, or think I have, submits to this question.  It is clarifying, purifying.  The next time something or someone pisses you off, try it.

One of the truisms about bullies which is often forgotten is that in their self estimation they are simply protecting themselves from the threats of others.  That these threats are both exaggerated and not uncommonly fabricated does not change the psychological reality to these people of the justice and truth of their “responses” to these threats and insults and injuries.

Likewise, on the Left one sees this constant refrain that they are “under attack” by Republicans, that the blacks, and gays (not the Jews: fuck the Jews is the motto of the Left, even among that large contingent that IS supposedly Jewish), and women, and foreigners, and foreign nations, and the WORLD are being assaulted, that these horrific, hateful Morlocks are sucking away everything good and decent in the world, that they only want the RICH RICH RICH to become richer, and that they laugh at the gullibility of all who support them.

That this is a cartoon seems not to occur to them.  That a moments pause, a minutes research, an hours dialogue would disabuse them of their bigotry and reflexive hate does not occur to them.

And so while attacking violently and with no effort at understanding they view their struggle as primarily DEFENSIVE.

This, because propaganda.  That is the short answer, but I thought this thought train worth sharing.

http://time.com/4309786/read-donald-trumps-america-first-foreign-policy-speech/

Small wonder Trump is so hated.  The Democrats fail to connect the dots and realize that their Great Leader is, with respect to foreign entanglements, indistinguishable from George Bush, other than that he is unable even to finish what he starts, whereas Bush left Obama a stable Iraq.  Drone strikes: Obama is the undisputed king.  Illegal wars: ditto.  Bush has Congressional authority.  Obama has not, for Libya, for his interventions in Syria that created ISIS, his attacks in Yemen, and no doubt sundry other places I don’t even know about.

I like Trump. He is different.  Hillary is a continuation of Obama, Sanders would be an unmitigated disaster, and I don’t trust Cruz.  Cruz has only lasted this long because Trump created the space for non-traditional candidates.  Had Trump not entered the race, Cruz would have been out long ago, and we would be looking at another Bush, in all likelihood.

There is a profound difference between a man who has sexual fantasies about other men, and a man who has fantasies about being a woman.

At issue is not what we might term “cultural effeminacy”, which is to say ACTING feminine according to our expectations of what that means.  Many homosexuals act effeminate to the point of calling each other bitch, and of course there are heterosexuals like Prince–I assume he was a heterosexual, mainly–who act effeminate as well.

What transgender people, so called, want is to BE the opposite sex.  They play act because they are forced to, but the animating vision and dream is to BE the opposite sex, complete with appropriate organs.

But this is impossible, at least with current medical science, and it is hard to see how an identity that exists down to the cellular level in XY versus XX can ever be changed.  Nor is it clear why this should be necessary.

You can cut off a penis, but that does not become a genuine clitoris.  You can cut a hole near the perineum, but that does not become a vagina, and you cannot insert a uterus, and it cannot be impregnated, as far as I know.  Women will never spontaneously produce semen filled with biologically active sperm. I am belaboring the point.

Psychologically speaking, transgenderism is, in my view, an addiction to the impossible idea of being something one is not.  It is not different from the anorexic who dreams of weighing 10 pounds, or even nothing.  It is not different from the bodybuilder who cannot get big enough, who does obscene and deadly things to get every last inch of muscle, knowing full well that death is the likely and quick result.

We read that transgendered people, so called, commit suicide at 20x the rate of normal people.  Why not?  They are attempting to divert attention from primary psychological processes they are avoiding with their obsession, their addiction in my terms,  but there comes a time when reality has to be faced: they will never truly BE the opposite sex.  Not in this lifetime.

We have always known that homosexual men use the men’s room.  My local swimming pool felt the need to to post signs saying it is illegal to film people changing clothes.  This is vaguely creepy, but they have to use something, and the women’s room makes no sense.

So the issue is not whether or not they will be possible sexual charges in the bathrooms, but whether or not the slightest SHRED of common sense will remain in this benighted nation, plagued by imbecility, cowardice, ignorance, and thoughtlessness.

As Bill Maher put it, in a rare commentary with which I agreed in the main, “if you look like a woman, use the woman’s room; if you look like a man, use the men’s; and if you are a bearded man in a dress, wait to use the bathroom until you get home.”

I personally have signed the “Boycott Target” petition, and will take it seriously.  I read they have installed urinals in LA in some of the women’s bathrooms.  This more than validates this decision.  Statistically, there are more REGISTERED sexual offenders than trannies of both sexes.  Given that an unknown but presumably large number never get caught, this should give sane persons of good sense pause.  The women of this nation–the girls of this nation–have rights too.  You cannot make everyone happy, so why not 50% of the population–less some nominal amount obsessed with politically correctness, and cultural suicide–relative to roughly one half (accounting for the men posing as women, who are the main concern) of .03% of the population?

Most of the curses I received as a young child were, I think, conceived and executed as blessings.  Here is the thing: a Christianity consisting in fear, hatred, repressed rage, blind submission, and physical violence is more suitably called Satanism.  It is more Satanic than Satanism because Satanists ACKNOWLEDGE the object of their worship.  Such Christians lie to themselves and others about what they do, and why they do; about who, in the end, they are.  No honest Satanist should ever tell the truth about their creed.  This much has always seemed obvious to me.  Satanic Christianity is a double removal: truth is removed from public display, and from private consciousness.  This second removal perhaps makes it slightly less odious, but the reality is that Satanists themselves lie to themselves as well.  They pretend that the feeling power they seek is possible for more than moments, and that they can escape the horror within them by attempting to satiate it.  They cannot.  This, too, is addiction.

But I do think we need to be very clear that the word “Christian” implies absolutely nothing about the character and conscience of the person professing to be one.

Power without life is worth nothing.

Pema Chodron introduced a concept new to me, that of non-theism.  The
idea is simple: we can reject, based on our personal experience, the
notion that some spirit can be relied upon to protect and help us,
without rejecting with it the notion that some unfathomably large and
incomprehensible connecting power still underlies the universe, in
roughly the sense the Deists took God. 

Most of us have
had inconsolable nights where there was no angel, no spirit of God.  We
have had things happen that we fervently wanted to avoid, and overall
have had no experience of benevolence from a higher power.

And
I was thinking that for some people, the asking from God is all too
close to the asking parents for help–protection, consolation,
guidance–that never materialized.

There comes a
psychological point for many, I think, where emotional stability and the
possibility for separation from a painful emotional linkage with past,
REQUIRES rejecting this notion of an omnipotent father who can be relied
upon.  The rejection is imprecise, but one typically based upon the
sense I still see often, that the choice is between No God and a God
which is purportedly described in a book somewhere, with the God of the
Christians the most typical target.

These are the
dogmatic atheists.  For them, I feel, to reconsider the idea of God is
to reopen an emotional witches brew of conflict and pain, even if
empirically something like a Deistic god–or more likely an interactive
universe with rules we don’t yet grasp–seems to be what science most
strongly supports, from the data.

The truth is that one
can easily assert that the True God has never been described, and that
no religion has a monopoly on truth, and that most of its most sacred
tales are simply myths–in both senses–rooted in primal unconscious
psychosocial realities.

So much of life is clearing
underbrush, space, for thinking and feeling clearly.  The more barriers
you find, the more barriers you find.  Most of us exist in very small
spaces, and what we call freedom is perhaps a slightly larger prison
cell than our neighbor.  Spirituality is nothing more or less than
dreaming of leaving the prison entirely.

The path to superiority–and the very concepts of moral and emotional and spiritual growth depend upon and arise from sensing the existence of such a state–does not lie through FEELING superior.

If you are superior, you are separate from, and if you are separate from, you have lost most of life.

Addiction may be defined as focusing all attention on what is impossible. It inherently arises from a lie.