Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!
Kalidasa
You know, if you are positioned to benefit from inflation, you are virtually guaranteed it if you can either start a war or get a socialist elected. In both cases, the impulse to print money is overwhelming.
Keynes made his money predicting alterations in the value of national currencies. In his own way, George Soros does the same. If you are a predator, you want to weaken your prey, and idiotic fiscal policies–both of which are just about guaranteed in both war and socialism, but which are permanent in socialism–are just the way to do this.
Where is our inflation today, though? It was low under Bush and remains relatively low, right? Our own situation is more complicated than, say, Weimar Germany. The bulk of our inflation comes from borrowing using the fractional reserve system, whereas then it was the result of the government printing money to pay off enormous war debts. As things improve economically, I expect inflation to increase considerably. The Fed will pursue deflationary policies, and only God knows what will happen.
The main point I wanted to make here, though, is that when entities like the IMF push for currency devaluation to “boost exports”, they are simultaneously asking that country to discount itself. This is of course enormously helpful for predators. This process is facilitated by expansions of welfare programs which cannot be paid for in any way BUT inflation.
Net: socialism creates inflation which creates economic weakness. For this reason alone one would expect non-socialists to call for socialism.
I like to watch flowing water. What you will notice from time to time is an unexpected “bump” of water. This is a feature of a chaotic system: the periodic outlier. The system itself, however, is defined by the arithmetic average, the statistical behavior, over time. The system may never for a moment hit these abstractions perfectly, but will hit them approximately all day long.
People are defined by what they do most of the time, over time, and why. A single sin does not alter a personality, necessarily, except to the extent that either guilt or the rationalization implemented to ease guilt affect qualitative change in how that person moves through the world. This would be the equivalent of permanently redirecting the water.
It seems to me too that guilt becomes “stuck” when you fail to achieve the growth being asked of you. When you do something you feel really bad about, you do not have a choice of returning to the status quo ante. You either grow or you diminish. You either permanently internalize a new personality gestalt, or you downgrade to the sort of person who can make the incongruities evoked go away by simply ignoring previously dear principles; by in effect rejecting who you were and had to that point chosen to be.
I was in a library today, looking at all the ideas, and it occurred to me that the ENTIRETY of the knowledge contained in there arose from the simple idea that progress was possible. Prior to that, there were perhaps a few hundred books in existence, and only the Bible–in most of Europe–mattered. The “library” would have consisted in one book. Everything you needed to know was in there.
Would there be a need for a scientific method, if there were no idea that new insights and relationships could be teased from the cosmos?
This sort of idea I call qualitative; paradigmatic would work as well, although it is so big that I might academicize and call it metaparadigmatic.
Movement begins with the idea that movement is possible. This is so obvious that very few people truly grasp it. Very few of us ever come even CLOSE to seeing what is possible, and there is no reason for me to think I am one of them. As far as that goes, one would need to be outside the system to even begin to comment on this from a position of knowledge.
What we can see, however, is frequent stupidity across the ages. If one were to posit that it is slowly fading, one would not do so without evidence. Most of the fratricidal instincts of past ages have muted in recent decades, to the point where one wonders if global peace might not in the end actually be possible, and that within a genuinely Liberal framework.
Let’s work to that end.
You know, sometimes it is possible to feel new emotions. Seen in my analytical, detached way, it seems to me likely that emotionless emotions are possible. By this, I mean that we normally consider our emotions to be marked by biochemical/hormonal responses to thoughts and situations. Anger has physiological causes and expressions. Sadness likewise.
But what if we take the notion of a soul seriously, and extend “emotions” to it, that are NOT conditioned by physiology? This is a qualitatively different sort of thing, isn’t it?
Today, on a long drive somewhere, this connection with death came upon me. Now, this was not a melancholy thing, but rather something intensely interesting. It came upon me that death is in fact an adventure, and that, as Sharon Stone once put it, it is “always close”. We look forward to futures on this earth. But if we are in fact spirits in a material world, our real lives cannot begin until we leave here. We act as if we were going to live forever, when this is not possible, on Earth–not now, at any rate.
Some years ago I read the Carlos Castaneda books, and one of the lessons was “use Death as an advisor”. I read that as remembering that time is always short, and you have to be always focused on the little time you have. That is one way to read it.
Another, though, is to focus on this energy of connection with something larger. This energy is both frightening and exciting. The two cannot be separated, at least until someone develops skill in dealing with it. Driving a car is both terrifying and mundane, depending on where in your learning curve you are.
The net takeaway is that a focus on the macabre is not intrinsically bad. Death has an energy that can be used for personal growth.
Long day, so I’ll leave it there. This feeling is hard to express in words.
I just collated my pieces on our financial system, which are complete enough, even if they still lack serious treatments of Fannie Mae and the IMF.
My hope is that between sessions of humping, drum playing, public urination, and dooby passing someone will read this, print it, and bring it forward for public discussion. You have plenty of time on your hands.
Here it is: http://www.goodnessmovement.com/Page23.html
Oi. I write a lot. I probably have as much unpublished stuff as exists on both my published sites combined. I just found this today, having forgotten writing it. Since it does no good where it is, here is a cut and paste:
One of the primary political sins—perhaps the defining sin of would-be autocrats—is the abuse of language. George Orwell argued this clearly enough. In our supposedly “post historical” age, I think it worth dilating for a few moments on some key terms in what would be our political debates, if anyone still debated.
Edmund Burke, in coining the word Conservative, meant to contrast it with the excesses of the French Revolutionaries. Since the word “leftist” itself (referring to their physical seating in the Assembly) originates with the French Revolution, we can I think accurately oppose them to Conservatives.
In Burke’s arguments, he refers to the English Revolutions–and in particular the “Glorious Revolution”, in which Parliament gained once and for all the right to make Kings—and contrasts them with the French Revolution. More on the latter later. For now, let’s follow what happened in England.
The accession of William of Orange concluded a very bloody period of history, in which ambiguity with respect to succession—and the proper role of the King–had caused a great many Englishmen to lose their lives in internecine fighting. This transition, which was quite peaceful, simultaneously improved the English political process in a lasting, sustainable way, while retaining much of the traditional order of the system, which did so much to stabilize it.
They retained the office of the Monarch, while limiting his or her power of action steadily. They instituted a tradition of peaceful transition. They retained British legal traditions. They retained, of course, Parliament. In sum, they kept what was working, and rejected only what was not working.
Now, as the French were to do, the English had killed a King. This was in some respect a sacriligious act, since the King embodied the will of God. Thus, this was also a revolutionary act. But rather than reject the whole structure of their society, they turned back, and had their Restoration. Viewed in the abstract, and from the perspective of time, one can see a slow, gradual progression—done in fits and starts–from an autocratic order to the liberal order from which emerged the ideals which informed much of our own Constitution.
Now, the word liberal refers to someone who prefers the growth and expansion of freedom of action and belief, relative to someone who prefers an order based SOLELY upon traditional modes of power, and conformity of belief and practice. Liberalism, in this sense, has as its best exponents men like Adam Smith in the economic realm (who opposed the concentration of capital of Mercantilism, which paralleled monetarily the concentration of power enshrined in non-Constitutional Monarchy), and John Steward Mill in the political realm.
The American Constitution is a liberal document. It is perhaps the DEFINING liberal document of human history thus far. What was crafted was precisely a means by which power could be disbursed in an orderly and progressive manner. In the original formulation, of course, only men of property were allowed to vote. But the foundation was there, self evidently, for that right to be expanded, as indeed it was, first to men, then to women, then universally. That this process was, with the exception of the Civil War—itself an almost inevitable result of the necessary pact with the Devil made at the original Constitutional Convention—peaceful, is generally unremarked upon.
As George Washington commented: “As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.”
Peaceful, organic evolution in the direction of inclusion on the basis of demonstrated personal responsibility was the point. Even though he himself was a slave-owner—something quite unremarkable in his time, or anywhere else on Earth—he has prefigured Martin Luther King, Jr. People, he argued, were to be judged by the content of their characters, and as they showed readiness, were to be included in our order as full equals in all respects.
Liberalism—true liberalism—is conservative. It keeps what is good, while slowly over time—again, in fits and starts—reforming the State as Society reforms itself. In conception, it is an idealistic, perfectionistic doctrine. The City on the Hill is an ineluctable element of true liberal culture.
The method of Liberalism is an open ended legal structure. Our system of government, formally, has no content. It depends on no religious convictions. It refers to no immanent, sacralized social order which is inviolable. It neither compels nor rejects religious belief.
In the simplest possible formulation, it is a system by means of which differences between races and people can be managed peacefully, within the framework of law. ALL are equal before the law. This part is crucial. No one gets any special legal privileges. Our system, itself, is what we hold sacred.
Yet, at the same time, the conception of moral growth is essential. Clearly, our Founding Fathers—even, perhaps especially, the Masons—believed that what they were gifting to us was a political system conducive to moral perfectibility. A system by means of which men could live out their lives in their own way, unmolested by their neighbors and the State, and in so doing pursue their own religious and moral ends in complete freedom.
It was well understood, as evidenced by the relatively recent Reformation, that religious belief untempered by a mediating secular authority, could readily become autocratic and create violence and death. At the same time, the most basic element of a belief in God, and belief in moral growth, was considered sufficient for a self governing nation to survive. Our freedom was the freedom to choose our own form of virtue, and self perfection.
George Washington again: “I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our nation”.
Even though the details might differ, in other words, the basic outline of how to be a decent person was plain enough that there was no need for State coercion. It should be added in that regard that Jefferson’s much-debated substitution of “pursuit of happiness” for Locke’s much more concrete “property” is not a call for hedonism. Rather, Jefferson had in mind Aristotle, and his conception of Eudaemonia, which amounted to the pleasure of accomplishment, of mastering your spirits, of virtue.
In one sense, then, Conservatism is simply liberalism that is not in a rush. Burke, himself, the paradigmatic “Conservative”, was a principled, early, and very articulate supporter of American independence for this reason. He understood, and agreed with our arguments about the necessity of inclusion in the political process, and that failure to include us was equivalent to tyranny, under which no self respecting man could be expected to live. He was a liberal.
Barry Goldwater, two centuries later, founded the Arizona chapter of the NAACP. This is a coherent liberal position—a commitment to gradualistic social improvement within the framework of a shared political culture and sense of social understandings–as indeed the rejection of slavery on the part of Republicans a century earlier was as well.
Yet there is another history of this word, another trajectory, and another set of assumptions about human life in general, and politics in particular, to which I will turn in my next segment, which presents the alternative to true liberalism: autocracy based on “the Lie”.
Look at this construction anew. It could be “it is a good morning”, or “have a good morning”, or “having a good morning?”, or “we are having a good morning”, as a ritual social reinforcement of a desired outcome.
Goodness is leadership. When Lao Tzu says in the Tao Te Ching that a “good man is the teacher of a bad man, and a bad man a good man’s charge”, he is not advocating moral relativism. Rather, he is indicating that these things exist on a continuum, and there no way to BE a good person, absolutely, and that there is no way to know how much growth is possible. All we can do is look at what is in front of us and compare and contrast.
To be Good is to be capable of happiness, of self arising, encompassing contentment and joy. One might think the person not anxious daily about going out and righting some wrong cannot be good. You have to go to bed and wake up thinking about the children of the Sudan, or little kittens stranded in trees, or the politics of X and what they will do.
There is a time and place for all this, but surely one of the interesting tasks with which we are presented is making our lives enviable enough to be worth imitating? Surely one task of a leader can be to model genuine happiness and contentment, such that other people can learn it for themselves? Do we not want happiness to spread the world over? Would there not be much less evil if everyone knew how to be happy with what they have, particularly if we combine this with effective wealth creation systems like fiat money-free free markets within Republican systems of government?
Me: I want to be clear (can I do a double colon? I don’t know, but I just did): I talk a good fight, and do sometimes feel very deep feelings of contentment, but I am distressingly normal. I sleep in and dream when I had intended to get up and do something. Once on a task I go as hard as anyone, but it’s hard getting me on task often, as my brain is always racing.
You hear this phrase “fit to be tied” for uncontrolled expressions of anger. I was very, very hot about something yesterday. Then I got tired, then I realized that I am quite clever and bold enough to end the problem decisively without butting heads with anyone. This is normally the best solution to most problems, but it was not the first or second that occurred to me. Being really mad is like an emotional spasm: everything locks up, and you can’t move. You really ARE already tied.
These ideas are just out there. I leave my name out of all this to make this effect more pronounced. You can use them, own them, and show me what I was talking about, in an embarrassing role reversal. This is all good.
It seems to me that many utopians treat life as an abstraction, and fail to think through concrete details.
None of the Bolsheviks, I suspect, thought beyond murdering the aristocracy. They have this meat cleaver, and the basic implementation process is killing or exiling whatever does not fit the plan. The plan, of course, is the eradication of nonperfection, which is defined on the fly by their leaders.
But you watch this, and if the art of the sculptor is removing what is unnecessary, these fools leave a pile of marble dust, and wonder why it isn’t beautiful. Then they pound the dust crying “live, LIVE”.
You: imagine in DETAIL what you would like your world to be like twenty years from now. If you have children, or nieces and nephews, what would you like their world to be like? What sort of work do they do? What do they buy with the proceeds of their labor? What are they allowed to do? What sort of government, if any, do they have? What are the values they are educated to embrace?
I look at, say, the Greek Communists, and wonder how they can be so stupid. Money does not grow on trees. Inventors do not invent consistently or well for the “common good”, but for themselves. Actions have consequences.
So many societies, seemingly, have yet to learn this.
The points I make seem clear enough to me, but I want to dilate on one issue: that of legalized theft of wealth.
People who save and invest their own money in things are not thieves. They are angels, as indeed some types of investors are called. They are necessary for good ideas to be converted into actual products and services. In a free market, EVERYONE can eventually be able to do this. The successful owner of a gas station can lend money to his son to start his own. There is nothing heinous or evil here, intrinsically, as the Marxists constantly attempt to argue.
When classes are permeable, when new wealth is constantly being created by economic growth, then all classes are RISING. The American poor have more stuff than 3/4ths of the world. This because an incredible amount of overall wealth has been generated.
The theft comes when the money loaned is not money saved, but rather money created for the purpose. Look at the large office buildings downtown in most major cities. They belong either to banks or insurance companies. I do not grudge insurance companies their wealth, although it is abundantly clear many of them use the legal system to insulate themselves from competition. In particular, most States discriminate against multiple potential insurance providers, in a manner clearly contrary to the Commerce Clause.
Banks, however, use deposited money as an operative pretext. They want to create money, and simply take enough money in in deposits that a plausible fiction can be created that they can actually offer up all the deposits, if asked, without trouble and at the same time. This is clearly not the case. Such a condition is called a “run”, and has caused the collapse of many, many banks. Bear Stearns, as I understand it, in effect folded as the result of an institutional run.
Doubling money, creating legal counterfeit money: this is the primary means of wealth reallocation, aka theft. The Central Banks of the world exist to facilitate this. In our own country, the Federal Reserve is in effect COMPOSED of the banks who want their backing. The government has nothing to say.
Just consider how much money banks control. Consider how dependent our economy is on the extension of credit. Where we used to make things, it seems now everyone just wants to get in the banking business. Where we used to pay cash, low interest rates (the Fed), and inflation have caused people to borrow. As I understand it, 15 year mortgages used to be the norm, they were carried by local banks, and they were paid off in full. It’s not hard to understand how easy money leads to real estate inflation.
I will add, too, that “inflation” can happen in sectors and places. There are national indexes or whatever, but if you look, say, at Las Vegas, there was HUGE price inflation, huge disconnects between what it took to build a home and what someone was eventually willing to pay. The sheer profitability of this is what led to overbuilding, and the current glut. That and foreclosures, of course.
If we look at this as a game of pin the tail on the donkey, where the tail is the right suspect, then Marx was wrong, and so are his modern followers. What we need to do is fundamentally reimagine a financial system that does not depend on money creation and inflation, but rather stable currency. Such a system will be FAIR, robust, and sustainable.
Surely some intelligent Liberal out there can grasp this point. You are out there crusading for justice. If you are unwilling to pick the right enemy, then you are a leftist; if you care about getting the thing right, then you are a Liberal. I will find common ground with you in a second if you pick the right enemy.