Category Archives: Politics

Politicians and Insanity

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Had an email exchange with Donna over the last few days. Thought that the last email I sent is worth being repeated here – putting my soap box outside, so to speak:

There is just some things out there that we can not grasp – like insanity. We can observe and accept, but never really understand.

I once was beaten up by some drunks and the first reaction to the punches were just total disbelieve that this is actually happening, only later did physical pain set in and that was actually not such a big thing as one would suspect.

In a little bit more detached way I can not believe (despite observing it) that there is a group of people who want to rule over others, including me. Just like insanity I can not grasp that, as in “wrapping my mind around it.” And I believe there are many like me, otherwise I can not explain that those people are getting away with that.

(Donna felt guilty about all the atrocities of war that had been committed by our ‘leaders’, so I said…) And I want to to stop blaming yourself for things you have not done – that is a slippery slope actually used by those people. Talking responsibility for what you have actually done is necessary for a sane life, but accepting guilt for things you have not done does the exact opposite.

The thing we do have to blame ourselves for is complacency, but not the killings that was started by those few insanes. It’s just with a broken down car. If the fan belt breaks and you change the tire, nothing will get fixed. So we have to find the right cause for what’s wrong.

And it is getting clearer and clearer to me that trying to argue logically with an insane person will lead to nothing but frustration.

The only way you handle a (known) lunatic, is to not react to what they do and suggest. We have to do the same with the (un-recognized) lunatics, called politicians. Yes, all of them! Because if somebody has the urge to rule others he IS insane. So, sorry, Ron Paul, but you are still supporting a system of insanity. During the last election I actually contributed to your campaign but I have not stopped learning since then. Choosing the smaller evil is still choosing evil.

The only thing that I have control over is myself. This is the only thing that I can change. Thus what I can do is seeing to it that my complacency does not lead to giving power to lunatics. No agreeing and, very similar to George Carlin – not believing anything anybody in Government tells me, especially (!!) if it seems to make sense.

 

There is just some things out there that we can not grasp – like insanity. We can observe and accept, but never really understand.
I once have been beaten up by some drunks and the first reaction to the punches were just total disbelieve that this is actually happening.
In a little bit more detached way I can not believe (despite observing it) that there is a group of people who want to rule over others. Just like insanity I can not grasp that, as in wrapping my mind around it. And I believe there are many like me, otherwise I can not explain that those people are getting away with that.
And I want to to stop blaming yourself for things you have not done – that is a slippery slope actually used by those people. Talking responsibility for what you have actually done is necessary for a sane life, but accepting guilt for things you have not done does the exact opposite.
The thing that we have to blame ourselves for is complacency, but not the killings that was started by those few insanes. It’s just with a broken down car. If the fan belt breaks and you change the tire, nothing will get fixed. So we have to find the right cause for what’s wrong.
And this is getting clearer and clearer to me that trying to argue logic with an insane person will lead to nothing but frustration.
The only way you handle a (known) lunatic, is to not react to what they do and suggest. We have to do the same with the (un-recognized) lunatics, called politicians. Yes, all of them! Because if somebody has the urge to rule others he IS insane. So, sorry to Ron Paul, but he still is supporting a system of insanity. During the last election I actually contributed to his campaign but I have not stopped learning since then. Choosing the smaller evil is still choosing evil.
The only thing that I have control over is myself. This is the only thing that I can change. Thus I will just see that my complacency does not lead to giving power to lunatics. No agreeing and, very similar to George Carlin – I don’t believe anything that anybody in Government tells me, especially!! if it seems to make sense. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDkhzHQO7jY&NR=1)

ISS – View out of the Cupola

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There are always two sides to a coin, and today I had to reflect on these two side in regards my my anarchistic conviction.

It is easy and righteous to be an anarchist, and to help as little as possible for all those things most of us abhor. War, extortion, corruption, etc. But there are a few things that I like that these guys are doing, like helping to get pictures like this…

Tracy's View out of the Cupola on the ISS

This is just one sample of the pictures taken by astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock during  his stay at the International Space Station just about 200 miles straight up. I can’t help considering other people who do not appreciate this venture out into space, just as I don’t appreciate beating up the Irakies or toppling a South American Dictator.

One of the most heard arguments against anarchy (in the sense of a society without a ruling government – not the definition of ‘chaos in the streets’) is “but somebody will have to build and maintain the roads!” On first glance that seems to be a valid argument, but thinking a bit further there are possibilities that don’t make it look so good. For one, a private builder who builds an area with houses he wants to sell, will make sure that there is a road that lets people get to these houses. Would make the houses probably a bit more expensive but considering that the buyer does not pay any taxes to a usually very inefficient government, the house with the street factored in would probably come cheaper than the house plus the taxes.

But what about highways and freeways? In part of the US we already have toll roads and they seem to be working just fine, and again the saving in taxes factored in, traveling might actually become cheaper. But lets assume that it would actually be more expensive to travel longer distances along toll roads – maybe other means of transportation would have been invented if they would be now more competitive without any government strong-arming the use of the road and car system. Maybe there would be already flying cars that don’t require expensive road building – or we would actually have the rolling roads of the early Heinlein – would THAT be cool!

Back to the space pictures. It might have take us a bit longer to reach the moon, but there is a good chance that we would have a flourishing space industry if there would have been no monopolistic government involved. A good chance that I might be able to afford a trip to Bigelow’s Space Hotel in one of Burt Rutan’s SpaceShip 4’s.

There would have been less people contributing to the cost of developing these space technologies, because right now each and every tax-paying citizen is a contributor. But if only the people who wanted it would be contributing, which is far less, it still could be more, as – first – an inefficient middle man is cut out of the loop, and – second – the people who do contribute really want it, and how much energy does does real intention add to the equation?

But despite all these ifs and whens I can still enjoy the great images from the ISS that were created with all our contributions – willing and unwilling – even forced. Here again the link to astronaut Wheelock’s images.

Cynicism and Reservation towards Authority

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There are now two-thirds in the family that more or less tell me I should not bitch so much about cops, politicians and consorts.

I could not help wonder if I am really that cynical towards authority. Looking at it from the point of view of somebody who is afraid of what authorities can do if you don’t honor and cherish them, I do see that I might appear rather cynical.

The example I have in mind is a remark that I have made probably more than once when I see some cops pulling over an old lady for some little traffic violation: feeling much safer now that those cops handled another hardened criminal and rid the streets of her!

Lately my son pipes in, in instances like this, with the (true) statement that not all cops are bad. Obviously I want him to be critical of authority – what else would you expect from an anarchistic father? – but do I cause the opposite to occur by making authority a victim of  my cynicism?

I actually don’t want to by cynical – it’s supposed to be funny! I know just too well that fighting again somebody or something will make that target only stronger, anywhere from actually winning against me to succumbing but becoming a martyr and thus gaining sympathy from well-meaning people.

I also know that the only way to rid us of these little tyrants is to ignore them. Just withholding any energy from them – good or bad – because this is what they live on. I believe it was Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio who predicted  that the current system will go out with a just whimper. It makes total sense to me that somebody or something parasitic will just whither away once the food source is withheld.

Everybody who understands this only has to do one thing – spread the word without falling into the trap of preaching. Say what you have to say and back off. No defending of the statement if it is attached, no arguing for it and not even cynical remarks of laughter. Just see, say and move on.

Here is a story, that appeared as a “letter the editor” in the Jackson, MS news paper on August 29, 2009, to practice that on…

Dear  Sirs:

During my last night’s  shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ringtone. Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer  status: Medicaid. She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has  money to buy beer.

And  our Congress expects me to pay for this woman’s health care? Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality  hospitals, doctors or nurses.  It is a crisis of culture — a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices  while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks “I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of  me”. Life is really not that  hard. Most of us reap what we sow.

Don’t  you  agree?

Starner Jones,  MD
Jackson, MS

We can look at this situation with fury and get all worked up about it or we could just look at it from the far future as an interesting historical deviation from sanity.

And it’s definitely nothing to get cynical about it – so, no more cynicism for me!

Sir, you have been selected for additional screening

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Wonder when this will become a reality – could not be very far away, though…

  1. let us look at your shoes
  2. let us look at your underwear
  3. let us look at your genitals

And I just read an article with a very convincing argumentation that these new scanners that actually look through your underwear will miss a few hundred gram of explosive that could bring down an airliner easily if it’s just formed naturally with tapered out edges to mimic fatty tissue.

But I guess the penis scanner will now make us really safe.

A Full Year of Uncle Jay Explaining the News

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I probably mentioned Uncle Jay and his explanation of the news before, but it is time to re-visit.

I never miss one of his weekly episodes and a week or two ago he had an offer I could not refuse – A whole year of news explained to little minds on two DVDs as a Christmas present to myself. I was aware that I would receive my DVDs only after this year was over to actually include the whole year on the DVD, but Uncle Jay wanted to make sure that his clients/viewers – the little minds – got that and stopped moving nervously in their chairs waiting for the DVDs to arrive.

Good thinking, Uncle Jay!

He sent out a confirmation that he received my order and demonstrated his great humor by not sending just some old paper form, but instead an official-looking certificate.

Please enjoy…

Que Bella Italia

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Oh, the Italians!

Beautiful cars, beautiful women, molto macho! Combine that with being in power as a police man, and you will get excess.

The excess I am referring to here is a police car for about quarter of a million (Dollar or Euro does not really matter here, does it?) All this, so that the rich boy who also has a Lamborghini Gallardo or better can be brought to justice should he be speeding. And if this speeding rich boy turns out to be a beautiful rich girl – just the better, then the police officer is at least on level flirting grounds – at least car-wise.

The reason there is a police officerette in the first picture is probably just a mistake or needed for PR reasons.

Now, without further ado, let me introduce the newest (and short lived) Italian police car and leave you with the remark that if they had only invested a fraction of the cost of the car in some driver training…

Irena Sendler v. Al Gore

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Irena SendlerGot this very interesting and heart-warming story of Irena Sendler presented in an email today.

Here first the story, then I will tell what impressed me most:

There recently was a death of a 98 year old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Iliana, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ulterior motive…

She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews, (being German). Iliana smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids). She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely. Iliana kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family. Most of course had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted.

A while back Iliana was up for the Nobel Peace Prize….
She LOST.

Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
Check it out: www.irenasendler.org

I will say nothing about the story itself as I have decided quite some time ago that it is not possible for me to decide what about all the atrocities during WWII is true and what’s not. There are indications that’s just the story the victors want to tell to look good, but there is also the other side which would indicate that there really is something to all this mass murder.

But the fact that I have no first hand information and no way to get them, combined with my solidifying conviction that there is no independent reality I have given up deciding what historical story might be true.

So, nothing about saving Jewish kids, but what caught my attention was the tone of the writer in the last sentence, that Al Gore won the Nobel price for a slide show.

I just love it when politicians are finally seen for what they really are. And if the population starts to laugh about these guys for giving themselves prizes in self-adoration then I have high hopes for all of us that we will get over this celebritizing (hey, Oxford dictionary editors, this is a new word for you!) of our tyrants, kick them out and finally build a non-violent stateless society – one in which Irena would get acknowledged for her brave action.

Did Dougles Adams indeed channel current Patriots

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Synchronicity can be a scary thing.

Having just finished the Iron Web by Larken Rose I ran into a short excerpt from one of Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide books…

[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship…]

“I come in peace,” it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, “take me to your Lizard.”

Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”

“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”

“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”

“I did,” said ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”

“What?”

“I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?”

“I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.”

Ford shrugged again.

“Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”

This great picture of today’s world of rulers and ruled finally prompts me to verbalize my thoughts on Mr. Adams. I do not want in any way diminish his accomplishments, but I think he was a medium channeling all these great pieces of wisdom packed into his books.

I watched, many years ago, after I was already totally enthralled by Mr. Adams nuggets of wisdom, a BBC show with and about Douglas Adams. It presented, amongst many other great info about the Hitchhiker’s Guide and it’s beginnings, some interviews with Mr. Adams. From his statements in these interviews there was no other possibility than that of external influence. The man being interviewed just did not seem to have the capacity to come up with mind-boggling wise answers to the question on how to learn to fly, which is, as any Douglas Adams reader knows, “You throw yourself to the ground – – – and miss.”

As said earlier, my intention is not to take away from Mr. Adams accomplishments, it just is in a little bit different arena. He was the man who picked up these gems of insight from all over the space-time continuum and packaged them in a form that is – and there is no other more fitting word – mind-boggling.

Just take the quote above – is there still anybody who does not see – at least for a moment – how ridiculous it is that we accept, without revolting, our political system of governmental lizards that everybody hates but votes for every few years nevertheless?

Back to the scary synchronicities I mentioned in the beginning – for me, finding this parable and reading the Iron Web, all within a few short day, is like an 11:11 event that breaks open the solidity of the universe and slaps the fact into my face that things can be seen very differently.

Germania v. Washingtonia

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Synchronicities are always surprising and can, at times, be outright scary. Here is one that is somewhat in the middle.

Sometime last week I talked to somebody and the subject of Washington came up. The drives or walks along the impressive buildings oozing history, statesmanship and greatness of this nation. Did not really think much more about it and actually had the thought that I should take my son there and show him the sights that document how great this nation is.

This thought did not fit quite in with my latest subjects of study, my journey into the philosophy and realization of anarchy (*) but then again, I just had a chat with a friend who told me how she took her daughter to DC to show her the sights.

But the universe, or whoever that might have been, could not just let that sit there, no, it had to rub my nose into my glibness regarding this display of of state power, built in a way so that the people who actually build these temples for their masters, were even proud of their accomplishment.

So what did the universe (et al) do? – It threw this video into my general direction , so that I could not look past the facts any more…

Germania would have been bombastic, I’m sure, probably similar to how Washington, DC feels today to all the school children visiting the cradle of this greatest nation of the world, looking at the wonders and temples build to honor our politicians. I guess, as Hitler was not really a politician and lawyer, he was a lot more honest at what he was doing – Heil, Hitler! – for helping me to see a bit better what is going on and confirming the words of my two favorite anarchists (yes, I have two now!) – Larken Rose and Stefan Molyneux.

(*) anarchy: this word has two main meanings, one, that is often used in emotionally charged arguments, is a synonym for chaos and lawlessness, but the other one is the more objective definition of

  1. a state of society without government or law
  2. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
a state of society without government or law.