I'm going to get a bit esoteric here. This may be deeper than some of you would want or be able to follow me, so I won't be offended if you can't take this one to the house.
While the practical applications of the sciences explode at rates untold; guided as much by the fantasies of science fiction as practical schematics of engineers, we have reached a new low in philosophical evaluation of the state of nature and humanity. For the longest time we squandered all of our energies on foolish humanism, which clearly gives us no other practical application than to understand that social systems of certain sizes are dangerous, as are human beings in general. This weak paradigm lead to all kinds of butchery of language, including a dominant principle that natural and synthetic are on opposite poles(something you whole foods and organic food fans are conned out of top dollar over) despite being two totally unrelated terms. Natural is "present in or produced by nature." Synthetic means a product of synthesis, which is "an integration of two or more pre-existing elements which results in a new creation." Natural things are all things which exist in life, including human beings and actions of human origin. The perversion of language to include the idea that human action is unnatural is a intellectual fallacy of humanism.
Only "C" Student elitism could perceive human action as superior to nature, or supernatural, and therefore not a natural process. Therefore when one agues that huge granite buildings or landfills or plastics or nuclear fission are synthetic crimes of the "godlike" human over its inferior victim, nature, they are fundamentally asserting that humanity is superior to these nature, and not a part of or construct of it.
What if nature's intention or long term plan were to reformat the earths surface with plastics and metals, and we were simply the bottomfeeder catalysts doing her work? Could a man actually stop the expansion and construction of New York City, Tokyo, or Los Angeles? Are these phenomena, which are "human" and "synthetic" preventable or controllable by human means at this point?
No. Like a tsunami, tornado, or earthquake, this extreme channeling of human energy comes from a place greater than human intellect. The fact that we can't see this leads to fruitless pursuits, such as a goal of mitigating human impact on nature. Let it be known that in order to actually prevent human impact on nature, by human means, one must control humanity, even to the point of our population itself. Not that our population is particularly troubling, compared to other existing parts of nature, such as water, blades of grass, certain minerals, our presence is relatively insignificant. It's difficult to tell that from behind human eyes, as we tend to stack on top of one another in such a way as to believe the world is teeming with an out of control human population. The main operating concept here, however, is that proponents of this elitist philosophy would have to eventually consider control of human population as a means to an end of mitigating human impact on the other components of nature that we have decided are pretty enough to value. This is an unacceptable perversion of a paradigm, the likes of which already has its hints in post-humanism.
True wisdom is in the classics; submission to nature, respecting what we can and cannot affect, and that we don't really have a great understanding about what the consequences of anything we do are in the bigger picture or longer term.
Nature has proven that it favors change, and that chaos descends into order when viewed in closer perspective. This being said, a preservationist view to nature, that humanity is put on earth to try and prevent change in natural processes or that we are there to affect change in a very slow, limited way, and that any human change which happens too quickly or too radically is wrong is an arbitrary, absurd thought. We have no idea the consequences of our actions. We may well spend hundreds of millions of dollars, many man hours of work, and tons of resources on preserving a natural park which will just be tossed to the curb twenty years later by a particularly terrible storm, fire, or earthquake. If she chooses to do it with a fire caused by a lightning striking a tree it is sacred, if she chooses to do it by creating a vandal smoking meth out of a hollowed out iron wrench, its wicked.
I'm not advocating for the destruction of all plant and wildlife on the planet earth, nor am I advocating for the focus of all humanity on science and technology, I'm just calling for a realistic, reasonable perspective on human impact on the world around us. We may in fact not be the last stage in its development, propelling it towards its termination, but... maybe a minor, insignificant player in a much longer more complex system.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Understanding a Libertarian Free Market, and how it differs from a Neoconservative George Bush free market
I'm going to preface this with a little personal background to help understand why I feel the need to clarify the basic precepts of Free Market economics.
I have been a Libertarian, first, from birth by Constitutional indoctrination, as this is the ideal that the founders of our Nation framed it under, and second, by what I learned studying political theory in college.
Once one becomes attracted to the deeper political systems that laterally influence the mainstream American political parties, its a blessing and a curse.
First off, the social liberties i expect, both from my constitution, and from my belief in the concept of free-action and non-aggression, are implied, and some of them are reflected in both political parties. essentially, I, and others like me, believe that one should be allowed to do any voluntary action, both singularly or in groups, so long as no one else's rights are aggressed upon. These being human rights or property rights. This seems simple enough, but when you apply it situationally, it gets much trickier. You can't support it unless you believe in that principle itself, the principle that ones fate should be at their own mercy, and not at that of another, even potentially to a fault.
Here is a tricky part:
This also means i believe this to be true economically. That one should be able to provide for society in whatever way one might want, and as frequently or infrequently as one might want, and bear whatever fruits that might bear. This principle of self determination, in an economic sense, raised the overall quality of life for Americans historically as long as it was applied.
however, the time came where the interests of government, themselves, threatened to crush the markets. Within a century we had sneaky common-law precedent, theoretically meant to end slavery, applied to give individual rights to corporations. Shortly thereafter we had a public stock market, central bank, and a removal of the gold standard of our currency. Since this day, politicians stole the term, "the market", formerly meaning the free exchange of goods by private citizens and private companies, unregulated and wild, competing fervently for your dollar with high quality services, now applied to publicly traded corporations whom had no real owner, and no accountability to anyone. They pool such excessive resources, backed by public stocks and the whims of the stock market, that no private company owned by an individual could compete. The smaller private startup capital couldn't turn over the same quantities, and therefor couldn't get the low wholesale prices, or manufacturing prices that a major publicly traded corporation could.
This lead to lawless, 10 headed companies swallowing up communities, and the steps taken to correct the problem became legislation. At this point, the Republicans, who generally tout the virtues of the "free market", now meant CORPORATISM. essentially, regulatory agencies for industries were created, opening Corporations to lobby them for things... sometimes there are funding kickbacks for being in compliance with a new law, sometimes government infrastructural needs are auctioned off, where a monopoly is created on a service being paid for by taxpayers with almost no transparency about cost. The resultant spending and nepotism towards certain corporations with a strong lobbying interest resulted in more aggressive lobbying.
This is not free market. Kickbacks or tax breaks to benefit certain corporations is a MANAGED MARKET, one found in a system of Corporatism. Free Market thought only allows contracts between individuals, and companies which are not liable for their actions are illegal.
Having headless corporations, whose only master is a random breeze of people holding stocks makes planning for long term success an impossibility. You have months to turn a profit, or maintain one if a problem occurs in your industry, if you can't make it happen fast, the bottom falls out from underneath you. Then corporate tax law favors losing money on purpose to get into lower brackets to have a better bottom line.
the market should never be restrained in a way which causes someone to become unproductive in order to accrue more wealth. This defeats the whole purpose.
The point of an unregulated market is to take advantage of the greedy and the workaholics by providing them an incentive to better society by creating more resources. When you don't provide this opportunity, these people do not do the extra work which causes prices to lower for those who don't want to do it.
The SAD THING, is that our Politicians have perverted "free market" to mean "corporatism". People believe that free market policy benefits big corporations, when, in fact, destroying the regulatory agencies that supervise them, would probably destroy the corporations also.
In fact, going to the original system before the Civil War, when the 14th Ammendment was applied to Corporations, the current idea of an entity which is not a private citizen having monopoly over an industry would be an impossible concept. it is only through twisted legislation, parading as a check and balance against big companies, which snuffs out competition from enterprising small business.
Health care is a great example of something which is hurt by over regulating, and I'll give you some examples. These will be fairly simple.
Our current healthcare system is regulated by many regulatory agencies. There are rules about who can use what medicines, where they can be acquired, who can deliver them. There are rules about who can be a doctor, nurse, surgeon, and certain types and amounts of schooling that are required to provide these services. There are rules about what procedures you are allowed to perform, and under what circumstances, where, and with whom. These types of laws are aimed at increasing the quality of care, however they all fail. There is no amount of school a doctor can attend to guarantee he wont sneeze when he has a scalpel up to your left ventricle, this is just not reality. And not allowing a doctor to, for example, intern under a doctor for years for free instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on colleges, all of whom are of suspect and varying quality, increases the cost of education for everyone in the building before you even step into the office. Oftentimes you have nurses doing almost all the procedures you might need in a year, yet you still have to pay for the doctor's entire practice, education, and business infrastructure every time you step into the office.
The current laws prevent you from buying and taking home test kits that show if you are positive to a strep infection in your throat. anyone with a high school education could do that type of procedure themselves or for their own family, and purchase antibiotics over the counter and solve that problem without the 200$+ visit and 50$-200$ antibiotic cost. This could be solved for 15$ and probably cut a few hundred thousand pointless doctor visits out of the game. This would free these rooms up for people with serious problems who need real medical attention. There could be countless examples of ways to limit cost if regulations disappeared. Under the current rules a nurse who has performed a procedure for 40 years can't open her own practice and give the procedure not under supervision of a doctor without going back for more expensive schooling, even if the doctor she's working under isn't as qualified at giving it.
Also, what if someone needed a heart surgery and couldn't afford to do it at a hospital, and a private citizen who knew how to perform it but wasn't licensed was willing to? Under current laws to have someone save this persons life would be illegal, even considering the fact that a suitable alternative could not be affordably provided. Considering that, the person may actually want to take the risk of the unlicensed surgeon rather than die, if he was pretty certain his death was imminent without the surgery in question. Bear in mind a license does not guarantee a successful surgery, many times surgeons who are licensed make very big mistakes that result in a patients death.
Government regulation does not improve the quality of a service. This is a fact. Deregulation will not stop certain incompetent individuals from making mistakes, but neither will regulation. You can float through 12 years of college listening to Phish and getting wasted on Special K, if your rich enough, then your a short residency away from going live on a patient with no knowledge other than a variety of Will Farrell movie quotations and who won the Heismann trophy the past 50 years.
Don't let lying Big Government republicans like Mitt Romney scare you away from free market power. Corporations are not the good guys in the market, private companies are. small businesses. the middle class. This is who the market works hard for.
Snip the common law precedent applying the 14th ammendment to corporations, snip the fiat monetary system and the federal reserve, get our gold standard back to our money, so it retains value, and get rid of these "regulatory agency" piggybanks for public corporations, and watch the prices drop and your quality of life soar!
Freedom is choice. Use entropy against itself for better survival.
I have been a Libertarian, first, from birth by Constitutional indoctrination, as this is the ideal that the founders of our Nation framed it under, and second, by what I learned studying political theory in college.
Once one becomes attracted to the deeper political systems that laterally influence the mainstream American political parties, its a blessing and a curse.
First off, the social liberties i expect, both from my constitution, and from my belief in the concept of free-action and non-aggression, are implied, and some of them are reflected in both political parties. essentially, I, and others like me, believe that one should be allowed to do any voluntary action, both singularly or in groups, so long as no one else's rights are aggressed upon. These being human rights or property rights. This seems simple enough, but when you apply it situationally, it gets much trickier. You can't support it unless you believe in that principle itself, the principle that ones fate should be at their own mercy, and not at that of another, even potentially to a fault.
Here is a tricky part:
This also means i believe this to be true economically. That one should be able to provide for society in whatever way one might want, and as frequently or infrequently as one might want, and bear whatever fruits that might bear. This principle of self determination, in an economic sense, raised the overall quality of life for Americans historically as long as it was applied.
however, the time came where the interests of government, themselves, threatened to crush the markets. Within a century we had sneaky common-law precedent, theoretically meant to end slavery, applied to give individual rights to corporations. Shortly thereafter we had a public stock market, central bank, and a removal of the gold standard of our currency. Since this day, politicians stole the term, "the market", formerly meaning the free exchange of goods by private citizens and private companies, unregulated and wild, competing fervently for your dollar with high quality services, now applied to publicly traded corporations whom had no real owner, and no accountability to anyone. They pool such excessive resources, backed by public stocks and the whims of the stock market, that no private company owned by an individual could compete. The smaller private startup capital couldn't turn over the same quantities, and therefor couldn't get the low wholesale prices, or manufacturing prices that a major publicly traded corporation could.
This lead to lawless, 10 headed companies swallowing up communities, and the steps taken to correct the problem became legislation. At this point, the Republicans, who generally tout the virtues of the "free market", now meant CORPORATISM. essentially, regulatory agencies for industries were created, opening Corporations to lobby them for things... sometimes there are funding kickbacks for being in compliance with a new law, sometimes government infrastructural needs are auctioned off, where a monopoly is created on a service being paid for by taxpayers with almost no transparency about cost. The resultant spending and nepotism towards certain corporations with a strong lobbying interest resulted in more aggressive lobbying.
This is not free market. Kickbacks or tax breaks to benefit certain corporations is a MANAGED MARKET, one found in a system of Corporatism. Free Market thought only allows contracts between individuals, and companies which are not liable for their actions are illegal.
Having headless corporations, whose only master is a random breeze of people holding stocks makes planning for long term success an impossibility. You have months to turn a profit, or maintain one if a problem occurs in your industry, if you can't make it happen fast, the bottom falls out from underneath you. Then corporate tax law favors losing money on purpose to get into lower brackets to have a better bottom line.
the market should never be restrained in a way which causes someone to become unproductive in order to accrue more wealth. This defeats the whole purpose.
The point of an unregulated market is to take advantage of the greedy and the workaholics by providing them an incentive to better society by creating more resources. When you don't provide this opportunity, these people do not do the extra work which causes prices to lower for those who don't want to do it.
The SAD THING, is that our Politicians have perverted "free market" to mean "corporatism". People believe that free market policy benefits big corporations, when, in fact, destroying the regulatory agencies that supervise them, would probably destroy the corporations also.
In fact, going to the original system before the Civil War, when the 14th Ammendment was applied to Corporations, the current idea of an entity which is not a private citizen having monopoly over an industry would be an impossible concept. it is only through twisted legislation, parading as a check and balance against big companies, which snuffs out competition from enterprising small business.
Health care is a great example of something which is hurt by over regulating, and I'll give you some examples. These will be fairly simple.
Our current healthcare system is regulated by many regulatory agencies. There are rules about who can use what medicines, where they can be acquired, who can deliver them. There are rules about who can be a doctor, nurse, surgeon, and certain types and amounts of schooling that are required to provide these services. There are rules about what procedures you are allowed to perform, and under what circumstances, where, and with whom. These types of laws are aimed at increasing the quality of care, however they all fail. There is no amount of school a doctor can attend to guarantee he wont sneeze when he has a scalpel up to your left ventricle, this is just not reality. And not allowing a doctor to, for example, intern under a doctor for years for free instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on colleges, all of whom are of suspect and varying quality, increases the cost of education for everyone in the building before you even step into the office. Oftentimes you have nurses doing almost all the procedures you might need in a year, yet you still have to pay for the doctor's entire practice, education, and business infrastructure every time you step into the office.
The current laws prevent you from buying and taking home test kits that show if you are positive to a strep infection in your throat. anyone with a high school education could do that type of procedure themselves or for their own family, and purchase antibiotics over the counter and solve that problem without the 200$+ visit and 50$-200$ antibiotic cost. This could be solved for 15$ and probably cut a few hundred thousand pointless doctor visits out of the game. This would free these rooms up for people with serious problems who need real medical attention. There could be countless examples of ways to limit cost if regulations disappeared. Under the current rules a nurse who has performed a procedure for 40 years can't open her own practice and give the procedure not under supervision of a doctor without going back for more expensive schooling, even if the doctor she's working under isn't as qualified at giving it.
Also, what if someone needed a heart surgery and couldn't afford to do it at a hospital, and a private citizen who knew how to perform it but wasn't licensed was willing to? Under current laws to have someone save this persons life would be illegal, even considering the fact that a suitable alternative could not be affordably provided. Considering that, the person may actually want to take the risk of the unlicensed surgeon rather than die, if he was pretty certain his death was imminent without the surgery in question. Bear in mind a license does not guarantee a successful surgery, many times surgeons who are licensed make very big mistakes that result in a patients death.
Government regulation does not improve the quality of a service. This is a fact. Deregulation will not stop certain incompetent individuals from making mistakes, but neither will regulation. You can float through 12 years of college listening to Phish and getting wasted on Special K, if your rich enough, then your a short residency away from going live on a patient with no knowledge other than a variety of Will Farrell movie quotations and who won the Heismann trophy the past 50 years.
Don't let lying Big Government republicans like Mitt Romney scare you away from free market power. Corporations are not the good guys in the market, private companies are. small businesses. the middle class. This is who the market works hard for.
Snip the common law precedent applying the 14th ammendment to corporations, snip the fiat monetary system and the federal reserve, get our gold standard back to our money, so it retains value, and get rid of these "regulatory agency" piggybanks for public corporations, and watch the prices drop and your quality of life soar!
Freedom is choice. Use entropy against itself for better survival.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Why the Patriot Act, Military Comissions Act, and other infringements upon my liberties are not valid per my citizenship with my state.
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i urge everyone reading this to take the time to examine their STATE Bill of Rights. Per the Baron vs. the City of Baltimore judgement of 1833, you are not a citizen of the Federal government, unless you live on Federal property. Although the 14th ammendment has given you duel-citizenship where it applies to States violating the U.S. Bill of Rights, it has not been applied in reverse. This means that all laws persuant to you must come from the state jurisdiction. Essentially, this application means that the United States Bill of Rights does NOT apply to you as a state citizen except where legal precedent has come down in judgements using the 14th ammendment.
Here are the reasons why the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, and such are not valid per my citizenship as a member of the Tennessee State, and my being beholden to its Bill of Rights.
i urge everyone reading this to take the time to examine their STATE Bill of Rights. Per the Baron vs. the City of Baltimore judgement of 1833, you are not a citizen of the Federal government, unless you live on Federal property. Although the 14th ammendment has given you duel-citizenship where it applies to States violating the U.S. Bill of Rights, it has not been applied in reverse. This means that all laws persuant to you must come from the state jurisdiction. Essentially, this application means that the United States Bill of Rights does NOT apply to you as a state citizen except where legal precedent has come down in judgements using the 14th ammendment.
Here are the reasons why the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, and such are not valid per my citizenship as a member of the Tennessee State, and my being beholden to its Bill of Rights.
"Sec. 1. That all power is inherent in the people, and all free gov-
ernments are founded on their authority, and instituted for
their peace, safety, and happiness; for the advancement of
those ends they have at all times, an unalienable and inde-
feasible right to alter, reform, or abolish the government
in such manner as they may think proper."
ernments are founded on their authority, and instituted for
their peace, safety, and happiness; for the advancement of
those ends they have at all times, an unalienable and inde-
feasible right to alter, reform, or abolish the government
in such manner as they may think proper."
This particular line protects my classification as an enemy combatant, as a state citizen is allowed by law to abolish the government.
"Sec. 7. That the people shall be secure in their persons, houses,
papers and possessions from unreasonable searches and
seizures; and that general warrants, whereby an officer may
be commanded to search suspected places, without evidence of
the act committed, to seize any person or persons not named,
whose offenses are not particularly described and supported
by evidence, are dangerous to liberty and ought not to be granted."
papers and possessions from unreasonable searches and
seizures; and that general warrants, whereby an officer may
be commanded to search suspected places, without evidence of
the act committed, to seize any person or persons not named,
whose offenses are not particularly described and supported
by evidence, are dangerous to liberty and ought not to be granted."
The Patriot Act being able to authorize warrantless searches is in direct violation of my STATE BILL OF RIGHTS, to which i am governed pursuant to the supreme court judgementof Baron vs. the City of Baltimore. Since these rights are echoed in my Federal Bill of Rights, the 14th ammendment would not serve as proper precedent to circumvent this jurisdiction, this right is echoed in the Federal Bill of Rights also.
"Sec. 8. That no man shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseized of
his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed, or
exiled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his life,
liberty or property, but by the judgement of his peers or
the law of the land.
Sec. 9. That in all criminal prosecutions, the accused hath the
right to be heard by himself and his counsel; to demand the
nature and cause of the accusation against him, and to have
a copy thereof, to meet the witnesses face to face, to have
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and
in prosecutions by indictment of presentment, a speedy pub-
lic trial, by an impartial jury of the County in which the
crime shall have been committed, and shall not be compelled
to give evidence against himself."
his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed, or
exiled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his life,
liberty or property, but by the judgement of his peers or
the law of the land.
Sec. 9. That in all criminal prosecutions, the accused hath the
right to be heard by himself and his counsel; to demand the
nature and cause of the accusation against him, and to have
a copy thereof, to meet the witnesses face to face, to have
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and
in prosecutions by indictment of presentment, a speedy pub-
lic trial, by an impartial jury of the County in which the
crime shall have been committed, and shall not be compelled
to give evidence against himself."
Here the Military Commissions Act judgement that an enemy combatant classification
would allow me to be held without due process of law against my will violates my
governing state Bill of Rights, making its application to me persuant to
Baron vs. the City of Baltimore, unlawful.
would allow me to be held without due process of law against my will violates my
governing state Bill of Rights, making its application to me persuant to
Baron vs. the City of Baltimore, unlawful.
"Sec. 25. That no citizen of this state, except such as are employed
in the army of the United States, or militia in actual ser-
vices, shall be subjected to punishment under the martial or
military law. That martial law, in the sense of the unre-
stricted power of military officers, or others, to dispose
of the person, liberties, or property of the citizen, is
inconsistent with the principles of free government, and is
not confided to any department of the government of this
State."
in the army of the United States, or militia in actual ser-
vices, shall be subjected to punishment under the martial or
military law. That martial law, in the sense of the unre-
stricted power of military officers, or others, to dispose
of the person, liberties, or property of the citizen, is
inconsistent with the principles of free government, and is
not confided to any department of the government of this
State."
Here, pursuant to my state Bill of Rights, Military Commissions Act is not applicable
to me, as it is a Military court and I as a state citizen can not be subjected to punishment via Martial Law.
to me, as it is a Military court and I as a state citizen can not be subjected to punishment via Martial Law.
please familiarize yourself with your particular STATE BILL OF RIGHTS. as this is likely your citizenship status, and this is where you get your rights. also, any federal law which is handed down must be accepted by the state, usually this is
encouraged via financial incentives. when federal judgements, laws, or executive
orders are passed down which you do not want to see in your life, contact your STATE legislature to have this application refused.
encouraged via financial incentives. when federal judgements, laws, or executive
orders are passed down which you do not want to see in your life, contact your STATE legislature to have this application refused.
here's an online resource to begin your research on your own state bill of rights.
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