Success Warrior: The Blog That Embraces ADHD

The Logic Behind a Second Lockdown

So,

The second lockdown has commenced in Utah with the restriction that only people who live in your house are allowed in your house.  Your reaction to this over-reach that goes way beyond what we could have ever imagine happening in the United States is probably similar to what mine was.  This isn't the USSR, after all, but before you run off to post your rant on LieToYourFacebook which will just get censored anyway, hear me out.  I have been doing some research on the logic behind the lockdown and I've had a change of heart.  Let me share my findings with you to see if you too will come around to the right way of thinking.  For some people, the thought of going through logic may sound tedious so I'll use an analogy as I go to help clear up the logic while hopefully making it less boring.

The quick and dirty of the lockdown logic comes down to this: the number of dangerously contagious people in society is skyrocketing and therefore, we need to separate everyone from everyone.  It does impose on those that aren't a risk and those not at risk but the the virus is so deadly that it justifies the oppressive measure.  Until the United States becomes a truly 1984 police state where people wear or are implanted with biometric devices that signal when they are sick and surveillance is so complete that we know everyone that sick person has come in contact with, we have to use this less precise approach.  Luckily, the goal is to have the better solution in place by 2030 so it won't be long before mass lockdowns are a thing of the barbaric past that we'll be able to laugh at.

The problem we are trying to deal with is that people with C1984 are dangerous to everyone else in the population and should be isolated from everyone else.  By doing this, we can stop this cold virus from killing every human being on the planet.   For our analogy, we'll say that people who have accidents on the freeway where the speed limit is typically 75 mph (121 kph) or 80 mph (129 kph) on more remote stretches of road are dangerous to everyone else on the freeway.  The high speed on these roadways means that accidents are much more likely to result in serious injury and death than on roads where cars are traveling much slower.  Obviously, steps should be taken to remove these dangerous drivers from the freeway before they have an accident.  To help get funding and public support for increased safety measures, we need to demonstrate just how dangerous the situation is by reporting the extraordinarily high numbers of accidents that are occurring at the present.  How can we do this?

The key to knowing how bad things are and what actions are required is to identify the dangerous people.  With drivers, we enforce various traffic laws to keep cars in their respective lanes and at a safe speed.  Those that continue to violate these laws are deemed dangerous and their driver license is suspended with the intent of keeping them off the roads, hopefully preventing accidents that they would have caused.  With C1984, the common approach to identifying dangerous people is PCR testing.

Lots and lots of PCR testing.  Testing has skyrocketed around the world.  In Utah, the number of tests being done now is about 500% more than it was in April.  In the UK, I've heard the difference is about 20,000%.  You might think that by doing that much more testing, it might be natural to see a correlation in the number of "cases".  You're on the right track.  If you look at the number of accidents on the freeways now compared to 50 years ago, you would expect there to be more accidents now based on the number of additional cars on the road.  You might ask, "but is this justification to completely outlaw driving or lock everyone in their houses?"  Maybe not but it's a good way to ensure that the number of cases does go up somewhat dramatically and is a good first step toward that justification.  

What if there was a way to magnify the "cases" beyond what people might expect?  If you tested 5 times as many people and rather than getting somewhere around 5 times as many cases, you got 23 times as many cases using April 1 and Nov 1 in Utah as an example.  Now, we're definitely talking justification for removal of all human rights from the populace.  The virus has come back with a vengeance.  The people should feel lucky that we allow them out to get groceries.  We could have the national guard deliver meals on wheels and put everyone on house arrest (without the actual arrest, house detention).  

To accomplish this, we test as many people as possible as outlined above using PCR tests and call any positive results "cases."  There are several reasons why the use of PCR tests is vital for this logical lockdown.

First, and possibly most importantly, PCR tests do not test specifically for C1984.  They are testing for viral RNA, any viral RNA.  If you have a cold, a coronavirus, that isn't C1984, it will still return a positive result.  In our crash analogy, it means that we can count people who back up into a light pole in the grocery store as a freeway accident.  This doesn't carry the same risks as crashing at 80 mph but you have to remember that we aren't looking for truth or reality, we are looking for justification to lock people in their houses, keep them from associating with each other, destroy the economy, and make them more willing to accept the 1984 solutions presented when their lives are in complete ruins.

The viral RNA doesn't even have to be a close cousin to C1984.  According to the CDD and FDA, PCR tests will test positive for bacterial pathogens.  That means that in addition to adding people who run into light poles in a parking lot to our count of freeway crashes (cases), we can add people who ride their bicycle into a mailbox as well.

It gets even better though.  We can manipulate PCR tests so that they detect viral RNA that is long dead and inactive.  This is done by adding cycles to the test.  Basically, that means that we look for finer and finer tiny bits of viral RNA.  RNA that is no longer alive and no longer contagious.  We can get a positive result by testing someone who had a cold 6 months ago.  We can test asymptomatic people who are asymptomatic because they don't have C1984 and never have had it and get a positive result.  So, now in our count of freeway accidents, we can add to today's number anyone who has crashed (car or bike, freeway or parking lot or mailbox) in the past.  Dr. Falsey says that cycles should be limited to 35 or less to reduce the chance of picking up traces of dead RNA.  Other doctors say that it should be 33 cycles or less.  If you are actually looking for contagious RNA, it should be 24 cycles or less.  Companies are testing using 37 cycles, 40 cycles, and there is one using 45 cycles.  By doing this, we make it almost a sure thing that the test comes back positive and gets added to the number of "cases."  I'm sure you can see how useful this is in justifying a lockdown. 

It should be pointed out that the FDA recommends that PCR tests not be used for diagnosis because they don't point to a definitive disease.  We will need to ignore that and pretend like these tests were created for detecting C1984.  I'm sure you understand that this is something that must be done in order to justify lockdowns.

Here's the frosting on the cake.  PCR tests return positive results if the person has the antibodies that makes them immune to C1984.  I mean, it doesn't get much cooler than that.  We can add to our freeway crash numbers people who live in places where there are no freeways, where it is physically impossible for them to be in an accident on a freeway.  Seriously, this one doesn't score us as many positives as the healthy people who were sick with some kind of disease at some point in their lives but there is just something very empowering about telling someone that can't contract the disease that they have it.  In your face!

As you can see, by increasing the number of people being tested and increasing the number of "cases" of this deadly virus exponentially, we have justified any and all unconstitutional or inhumane solutions, including lockdowns.  Easy, peasy, lemon, squeezey.

And that's where you must stop the logic.  If you take the next logical step, you completely undermine all of the work that has been done to this point so we won't do that.  For those of you that are happy that lockdowns have been justified and reinstated on the populace, stop reading here.  For those of you who are curious about the next logical step, read on but remember that this is something that will not be implemented because it completely derails the agenda.

In our car analogy, if you were told that freeway car crashes had increased by 23 times over a time period, you would have some expectations.  BTW, for those that are curious, the number of crashes in the United States has been essentially flat when factoring in the increased number of cars.  If there are 5 times more cars, there are about 5 times more accidents, as you might suspect.  Those of you who came to this conclusion earlier in regards to the number of tests being given really were on the right track.  Anyway, if instead of a direct correlation (5 times), you instead had 23 times more accidents reported by the media, you might expect to see:

• Crashed cars all the time on the side of the freeway
• News stories about how tow truck companies can't keep up with demand
• News stories about the trillions of dollars insurance companies are paying out
• Friends and family members who had been involved in some of these accidents
• Maybe even someone in your own household involved in at least one of these accidents

In short, you would rightfully expect to see a reflection in the real world of what was being reported by the government and propaganda sources.

This extremely deadly virus (which is still much less deadly than the boring old flu) has seen "cases" go through the roof, 23 times more now than in April for Utah.  We should be seeing the number of deaths going up in a similar manner.  You would think they would go up somewhere between 5 to 23 times as much, if this virus is so deadly and so many people have it.  Sadly, for our justification, the number of deaths is completely typical for this time of year.  We aren't seeing any correlation at all between "cases" and death.  This is why it is vitally important that we keep hammering away with "cases, cases, cases" and steer clear of any mention of the deaths or the dreadful lack thereof.  If we point this out, it would show that either the virus isn't that deadly or that there really aren't that many people who have it (kind of ruining the whole "pandemic" angle we're going for).  Just between you and me, it's both and this is something that we can't talk about at all or it will completely destroy the logic justifying mandatory masks and lockdowns.  Remember, the mantra for today is "cases, cases, cases" and let's see if we can get even more people tested with these completely unreliable, easily manipulated PCR tests.

We just need this to last a little bit longer.  We are working on our next scam, COVID-21.  We know that COVID-19 basically died off around June and we're asking you to really flog a dead horse by going along with this paper-thin justification but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Soon, we'll hit them with the new and improved (meaning more deadly or, at least, scarier sounding) scam pandemic and we can let go of 19.

For any of you that skipped the section on what to avoid and are looking for some kind of conclusion paragraph, I'll say this.  I think it has been clearly and logically demonstrated that lockdowns are completely justified and we are taking steps to make sure that they remain completely justified for the foreseeable future.  Spread the good news to everyone, especially those who have been wearing masks for so long that the reduced oxygen intake and increased CO2 intake has impaired their critical thinking ability.  

Why I Don't Vote (Part 3): Logic

So,

The unethicality of voting is reason all by itself not to vote.  People who are trying to lead good lives really don't need any more reason not to vote beyond the fact that voting supports an organization based on unethical actions and, more than that, is an attempt to take control of that organization so the evil power can be wielded according to their desires (even if that desire is to lessen the amount of evil being done, in the case of Libertarians).

But some people are better at doing evil than others.

And what kind of people do you think are attracted to a position that excludes them from the bounds of ethical behavior?

Underlying this principle is a certain logic, in that, if it is unethical for people to take the property from others through force or intimidation and "the government" is an organization of people, then it clearly follows that if they take property from others through force or intimidation, their action is unethical.  This simple logic is why it's so important to point out that there is no such thing as a government.  The government doesn't collect taxes and fuck up the lives of people who resist.  It can't because there is no such thing as a government.  People collect taxes and people fuck up the lives of those who resist.

You want I should break his legs?

Try late fees and fines first, to get more money out of 'em.  People with broken legs pay less taxes.

This simple fact, that "the government" is just a group of people who have claimed the authority to initiate violence on everyone within a certain geographical area (that area is called "The World" if it's the United States government) undermines, logically, arguments put forth by people who want to use "the government" as a solution to some stated problem.  I pointed this out in my posts about gun control. 

Gun control activists want to outlaw guns.  If you ask them who will enforce the law, they will say, "the government," and then try to change the subject to what they think will happen on <insert some assinine TV show name here since I'm out of touch with the current popular idiocy>.  They don't want to think about what they are really saying and if you tell them what they are saying, you'll just piss them off.  Since there is no such thing as "government," they mean that people will enforce the laws.  To ensure that happens, gun control activists will issue guns to people even though the main premise of their argument is that people with guns are dangerous.

Libertarians are not free of violating this law of non-contradiction.  If you take a very basic premise that government employees should do no more than provide cops, courts, and a standing army and drill down a bit, you find the same problem.  One reason that there should be cops is to protect citizens from having their property taken from them against their will, such as robbery and theft.  How, exactly, will the Libertarians pay for these protective government employees?

Bake sale?

That's a better idea than by taking their money through the use of intimidation.

Not only does it boggle the mind to think that the protectors will take money from people through the use violence and threats of violence in order to keep people from taking money from people through violence and threats of violence but the disparity between how much will be taken by the two groups of thieves is monstrous.

I looked at some stats, unfortunately a bit aged, but common sense should fill in the gaps.  There is a 99% chance that someone will steal something from you in your lifetime at least once.  Odds drop considerably (single digits) that you will be a repeat victim.  Robbery, once in a lifetime, was about 30% with very low odds of repeat victimization.  There weren't numbers on the dollar amounts that were stolen but I can't imagine that it's very high.  A couple hundred bucks or a couple thousand?  For most of us, at least.

How much do government employees take from you every year in income tax, property tax, sales tax, and other fees, fines, and taxes?

Like taxes tax.

Is that a tax on your taxes?  You are probably being gouged by the stupid tax.

I'm going to be honest with you Libertarians, I'd rather roll my dice without your "protection."  There is absolutely no way in the world that I would be the victim of robbery, theft, and burglary in my lifetime to the point where my loss would ever come close to what government employees take from me every single time I make a purchase at a store, every year that I want to keep *my* property and live in my house, or every April 15th.

Your "cure" is like giving me cancer so I don't get a cold.  No thanks.  I'll take my vitamin D and vitamin C and take my chances.  If I catch cold, I'll deal with it.  You can keep your solution to yourself.

Plus, they don't really prevent that much.  Mostly just try to catch the bad guys afterwards.

And government employees keep the fines and the victims pay to feed and house the bad guy in jail.

Are you guys trying to take over my blog?

Well, we would do a better job.

I'm with the twit on this one.

This collection of fines by government employees and revictimization of the person who had their property stolen is sold to the public under the euphamism of "justice."  You want justice, right?  Who doesn't want justice?  Government employees take 40 - 50% of everything you make over your entire lifetime, collect any fines they can from the perpetrator, and pass the cost of jailing offenders on to the people who had their property taken.  If there is any justice in there, I can't see it.

Maybe it's like a search-a-word.

Why don't you look for it and don't bother us until you find it.

This isn't just about theft and burglary but it served as a good example.  Just about any proposed "government" solution is like this.  Democrats want to prohibit any monopolies so they support an organization that has a monopoly on the initiation of the use of force.  Can it get any more frying pan to the fire than that? 

The bottom line is that you can't achieve your stated goal by doing the exact opposite.  You can't say that you promote freedom and then put effort into supporting an organization that forcefully rules over the people that you want to free.

I don't vote because I believe humans should coexist peacefully on the planet and that no one has the right to rule over another person through the use violence and threats of violence.  Voting, especially in America, would mean that I support violence and that I believe that there should be rulers over us.  You can't, logically, say that you believe in freedom and also say that everyone should vote for their rulers in order to achieve this freedom.  You can't, logically, say that you believe in peace and then vote to support the most violent organization in the world.

Giving guns to people to keep people from having guns, taking their property to protect them from having their property taken, creating a monopoly to prevent the creation of monopolies, voting for rulers in order to achieve freedom, supporting an organization that exists through the initiation of force on others to make the world more peaceful . . .

  

Guns and Control Redux (Part 2)

So,

Explain why the technique you selected would be useful. 

I think this substitution works on several levels.  It points out that the argument is invalid because it’s self-defeating.  It provides an opportunity to disassociate from indoctrinated thought patterns and existing, potentially emotionally charged, biases.  The idea of banning all dogs from biting is likely to be quickly dismissed as absurd, meeting this requirement of reductio ad absurdum.  It also uses analogy to point to something that never seems to get discussed.

Arguments against gun control laws tend to come in three flavors:

• Challenging the premise that people who have guns are dangerous (grasping by the horn)
• Substituting situations that are more dangerous into the logic (reductio ad absurdum)
• Appeal to the Constitution (using the 2nd Amendment - a fallacious argument with a plethora of suspects – appeal to authority, appeal to popularity, begging the question, amphiboly, and probably many more)

The first two are done to demonstrate that the argument is weak and the third is a misguided attempt at asserting a person's rights.  In the first, stories and stats are presented to show that far more guns are kept or used in ways that do not harm innocent people and that the media-hyped incidents (appeal to misleading vividness) account for a miniscule portion of the people who have guns.  The second substitutes more dangerous situations that people don’t want banned into the argument.  For instance, many more people are killed by mistakes and diseases they contract in hospitals than by felonious gun use, therefore people should be banned from going to hospitals, in order to protect them from an unsafe situation (you can substitute showers, smoking, Coke and McDonald’s, and a whole host of causes of death and injury far more dangerous than people with guns).  While both do a good job of showing that the gun control argument is weak, the dog/pit bull substitution goes one step farther, showing that the argument is worse than weak, it’s not even valid.  Strength and weakness don’t even need to be considered because it is essentially a self-defeating, non-argument.

Framing the argument around dogs helps put some distance between the argument and indoctrinated thought patterns and closely-held biases.  People have some very illogical ideas when discussing gun control (which will be discussed in the answer to the next question) and making dogs the center of attention may help them to think more rationally about the argument.

Arguing that dogs should be banned from biting is laughably dismissed.  Most dogs bite naturally out of fear for their own safety or in protection of their owners/property.  No one faults a dog that bites out of self-defense or that bites an intruder that enters a house.  When dogs do bite, the blame usually goes to the owner of the dog who either failed to maintain control of the dog, or worse, trained the dog to be vicious.  When someone hurts someone with a gun, no one looks intently at the parents, teachers, social workers, social system, clergy, or others who played a role in training the person to be vicious.  The gun becomes a scapegoat, either to avoid being tasked with solving the real and much more difficult problem, or to disarm the subjects of a country to make them easier to control, or some other motive not actually related to the "danger" of people having guns.

The analogy (which would probably be missed by most people) specifically using pit bulls as a substitution uses another indoctrination theme played out by the corporate media.  When you say “dogs,” the image of your own dog comes to mind or the thought of them as “man’s best friend.”  When you say, “pit bull,” thanks to media-hyped incidents (appeal to misleading vividness – are you sensing a theme?), people think of vicious, snarling beasts that rip children to shreds.  However, in this case, the pit bulls’ masters are scrutinized and many times, it is found that they trained the pit bulls to attack.  This creates the impression that pit bulls are inherently dangerous and that their masters are idiots and/or cruel, inhumane bastards who knowingly created a potential menace to society.  If you were to compare the number of innocent people killed and injured with a gun by people who are not government employees with those who are killed and injured by government employees, not surprisingly, you would find that government employees are by far the greater threat.  The nature of their training, environment, mindset, and weaponry makes them inherently more dangerous (I was a cop for 12 years and killed someone in the line of duty) and there is no doubt that their masters are idiots and/or cruel, inhumane bastards who knowingly create a potential menace to society. 

To be continued . . .

Related articles

Guns and Control Redux (Part 1)

Guns and Control (Part 3)

So,

One thing that I have learned while standing outside the cage labeled “False Dilemma” watching the unfortunate zoo animals trapped within is that it doesn't take a whole lot of mental acrobatics to dismantle most of their arguments, such as the one for stricter gun control laws. In fact, it takes no effort at all because they will do all of the work for you.

Awfully kind of them.

Isn't it?

The proposed "solution" to the "problem" (maybe the cage should be labeled “Hegelian Dialectic”) of gun ownership follows the same absurd thought process as so many of their arguments:

1. People with guns are dangerous.

2. Dangerous situations should be avoided or prevented.

Therefore, we will issue guns to people to prevent people from having guns.

Ummm, http://youtu.be/j9ndS6yu3Kk

Yes, yes you are.

As is the norm with these Pavlovian creatures and their close cousins, the sociopaths that see the contradiction but propose the “solution” anyway, the proposed “solution” immediately violates the stated goal of the proposed “solution”. As soon as they issue the first gun to a person, they have done the opposite of preventing people from having guns. If they had a solution that didn't involve issuing guns (or other, even more dangerous weapons) to people in an effort to reduce the number of guns owned by people, that would be different.

How about this? After we issue guns to people to disarm people, we issue guns to the disarmed people to take the guns away from the first group that we issued guns to.

I think you are now qualified to vote in the next presidential election.

As you can imagine, going around stealing guns from people carries with it a certain amount of risk.   Even if violence and threats of violence weren't the habitual choice for gun control proponents as an ironic "solution," it's fair to say that arming robbers who have orders to steal guns would be necessary in order to carry out the plan.

The plan of arming people to disarm people?

I can't quite put my finger on it but something doesn't sound right with that plan.

Truthfully, many of the people arguing in favor of this "solution" are ignorant of the absurdity that they are spouting. They have been raised to view USA, Inc. as an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, ethereal entity with superhuman powers, which is free of the ethical bounds of mere mortals. In short, to these people, USA, Inc. is a god.

According to Mittler Romney, corporations aren't gods, just regular people.

Maybe he meant to say, "Corporations are personages, my friend . . . of course, they
are."

I could probably write several posts on the ramifications of this belief and the benefits gained by the rulers and their subjects by participating in this religion but for this post, it's enough to note the existence of the belief. Deifying the rulers' corporation causes a mental disconnect which blinds people from the reality of what they are truly saying. It's what leads to the most clichéd question asked when discussing freedom with a statist.

"Who will build the roads?"

"Well, who's building them now?"

"God."

They have grown so accustomed to referring to this abstract concept of government as an actual physical being with supernatural powers that they have forgotten that it's just a corporation that employs people to accomplish things.

In the name of god.

Amen.

Any "solution" they propose to deal with a "problem" they have with people is going to have those same people utilized as part of the "solution."  This obvious contradiction undermines any argument they may make and makes the rebuttals in Part 1, while still valid, completely unnecessary.  The simple answer to calls for stricter gun control is, "So, let me get this straight, you're going to issue people handguns, assault rifles, sonic weapons, energy-directed weapons (heat rays), armored personnel carriers, tanks, and who-knows-what-else weapons in order to take weapons away from people?" 

Not people, the government.

Who are reptilian aliens?

The argument is ludicrous but these people have apparently made a vow not to ever be outdone as holders of the Guinness Book of Records for Absurdity.  Guess which people they want to give the guns to?  The same type of people who have killed over 10,000,000 people in the last 75 years, employees of the US government.  Now, I don't know about you but if I suddenly became demented and decided to impose my will on over 300 million people, I would still hope that my ideas sounded like they might possibly be in the vicinity of Rationalville.  Employees of USA, Inc. and despots receiving billions of dollars in US tax money each year probably kill more people in one month than nonemployees do in an entire year.  The plan proposed by gun control advocates is actually:

People with guns are dangerous.

Dangerous situations should be avoided or prevented.

Therefore, we are going to say, "Screw that!" and issue guns to those people with a predilection toward violence or who have been so fully indoctrinated into the religion that they will blindly follow orders to commit violence against innocent people . . .

I don't know the rest.  What motivates these people is beyond me.  I'm still guessing that it's because their high priests tell them what to do and what to think.  It's clear that it has nothing to do with rationality, reasoning, logic, or facts.  Perhaps it's the combination of obedience to their religion along with the emotional delivery of the message.  Employees of USA, Inc. killed more children at Waco than were killed in Sandy Hook and they do this all the time all over the planet.  Shouldn't gun control activists be advocating for control of those people? 

It's against their religion.

If they did that, their souls may be condemned to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity.

Or until they starved themselves to death to escape the brutality of people employed by the US government.

Related articles

Guns and Control Redux (Part 1)

Guns and Control (Part 2)

So,

In part 1, I discussed two rebuttals by gun owners in response to calls for more gun control laws.  In part 3, I'll point out the inherent absurdity of the proposed gun control "solution" but today, I'm going to discuss the rebuttal from gun owners that I find lacking and the reasons why I find it wanting.  One of my reasons is fairly common sense and the other shows how gun owners are helping to perpetuate a system hell-bent on seizing their guns. 

The 1% have more control than ever and their actions, such as having their butt-puppet, The Great and Powerful Oz, sign NDAA into law demonstrates that they are afraid the people aren't going to take much more.  Much of the hype by corporate media surrounding recent sensationalized incidents of violence in the United States has been fabricated or exaggerated while ongoing, massive violence by employees of the United States government is ignored by the same "concerned" media sources.  The purpose behind the hype is to persuade those who are too stoopid to know better into supporting the 1% in disarming their enemy, the 99%.

They are just concerned about our safety.

Yes, that's obvious.  Disarm the citizens and dissolve entire police departments.  I'm feeling safer already.

Not to worry.  When the police prove to be inadequate, expect to see the military called in to "protect" American citizens.

Who is going to protect the American citizens from the military?

You.  Without.  A.  Gun.

Do you think they would be content with a 2 out of 3 bout of rock, paper, scissors?

Not likely.

However, there is a push by quite a few people to reach out to military and law enforcement officers in an effort to convince them that attacking Americans violates their oath (in addition to being just plain evil).  Speaking of oath, if the two of you are quite finished hogging my blog, it's an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.  The Constitution, or rather the 2^nd Amendment, is the third common argument that I see put forth by gun owners as a rebuttal for stricter gun control and it is by far the weakest of the arguments.  I understand the desire to throw into the mix.  The two, more powerful rebuttals, are rejected so there is this feeling that adding another argument may help.  However, in addition to lacking the strength of the other two arguments and continuing a defeating mindset, it acts as a distraction from the better arguments.  While the two sides bicker about the meaning of the oddly worded amendment and attempt to read the minds of people long since dead, better arguments sit idle.

The common sense problem with using words written on a piece of paper by the rulers of the country is that the rulers can write new words on a piece of paper (or simply just ignore the "god damned piece of paper").  When the rulers do write new words on a piece of paper and your argument was based on the previous words on a piece of paper, your argument is gone.  The possibility that the rulers will write new words on a piece of paper brings up a new argument from gun owners.

Whether or not the new piece of paper is made out of recycled materials.

Or from the skin of someone who stood in the way of ExxonMobil.

Our rulers would never do that, would they?

I'm pretty sure I heard Obama say, "It puts the lotion on its skin," before his last drone attack. 

"This drone attack was brought to you by ExxonMobil.  ExxonMobil, bringing you a brighter tomorrow."

Unless you were the family hit by the drone.

The main thrust of the new argument is on the sacred nature of the Constitution and how changing it would be very, very, very, very wrong.  However, if you bring up changes that abolished slavery or allowed women to vote, the response is, "Well, yeah, those changes were right."  This drops the entire discussion into the realm of the subjective with both sides arguing about the nature of allowable or "right" changes.  Neither side can win this debate because it's a matter of personal opinion.  Easily changed or ignored words on a piece of paper that invokes debates based on a person's point of view completely deballs the Constitutional argument against gun control. 

Yeah, but what if I used the Constitution to make a paper airplane drone?

Then you'd have an argument that was lost in the next gust of wind.

Not only does the 2^nd Amendment rebuttal to gun control score a zero, it has the potential to reaffirm an insidious belief system in those making the argument.  This paradigm is anchored more deeply each time a statement is uttered such as, "The 2^nd Amendment gives me the right to . . ."  This creates or continues the illusion that people have 2^nd Amendment rights.  They don't and it's a very dangerous belief.

WhuchyoutalkinboutWillis?

I hate to say this but I'm with the goofball on this one.

People are constantly discussing their Constitutional rights (in fact, I have done so often in the past) as if they exist.  The danger of this mindset, of believing that the Constitution gives people rights, goes back to the heart of what the Constitution is: words on a piece of paper written by the rulers.  If it were the case that people were given the right by the words on the paper to own a gun, all the rulers would have to do to take away that right is change the words on the paper (or write new words in the form of a "law" that "nullifies" the right).

The truth is that you have human rights based on the fact that you are human.  You might call these inalienable rights.  You have them by the mere fact of being you.  They aren't granted to you by words on a paper.  You have these rights, period, not because they were bestowed upon you by some corporation (even one with an impressive name like The United States of America, Inc.).

Can I buy stock in that corporation?

You are the stock in that corporation.

What people habitually call a "Constitutional Right" is actually a "Constitutional Restriction" on the allowable actions by the rulers.  You don't have a right to own a gun because of the 2^nd Amendment.  You have the right to own a gun because humans have the right to own property.  People do not have the right to take your property without your consent.  Since the rulers exempted themselves from this basic moral principle, they had to put some assurances down in writing (2^nd and 4^th Amendments) for the people that they, the rulers, wouldn't just take stuff from people without a good reason.

But don't the rulers get to decide what amounts to a "good reason?"

Very good, Grasshopper.

By incessantly arguing about the 2^nd Amendment granting the right of the people to bear arms, the false notion that the government gives people rights is ingrained even deeper.  The truth of the matter is that governments can't grant rights which are inalienable, they can only violate those rights.  In fact, their whole existence depends on violating the rights of people.  If the rulers can somehow get the people to believe and act like their rights are derived from the government, the people can be more easily controlled.  If the people trap themselves in this mindset, the rulers don't have to openly expose the true basis of their control, their willingness to initiate violence against the people.

To be continued . . .

Related articles

Guns and Control Redux (Part 1)

Freedom of the Press

So,

I read an article today from Reporters Without Borders about their Press Freedom Index for 2011 - 2012.  No surprise but the United States dropped in ranking going from number 20 to number 47.

Damn you Occupy Wall Street!

Maybe they put too much importance on things like beating journalists with night-sticks.

"The equation is simple: the absence or suppression of civil liberties leads necessarily to the suppression of media freedom. Dictatorships fear and ban information, especially when it may undermine them."

Suppressing the blatant disregard for civil liberties is obviously a big part of the equation but I think there are a couple huge chunks that may have played roles in the plummet in the US ranking, with OWS acting as the catalyst to bring these things to the surface.  The article is big picture taking in the entire world in one article but in the case of the United States, it's vital to include the changing face of "media" and who the spotlight is pointed at when Occupiers start chanting.

The fact that anyone and everyone can be a journalist (although cities are going to be much more strict with press credentials from now on - to keep the riff raff out, doncha know).  When there were only 6 major media corporations controlling the release of information, it was safer to allow journalists near the action because it was easier to tell them which stories to cover and maintain control on what was eventually released to the public.

Similar to watching the Great and Powerful Oz do a "press release", only people who will go along to get along are allowed to participate with a camera.  Anyone allowed to ask Obama questions has to sign a "Softballs Only" agreement.  Before Obama declared himself a third world tyrant, anyone asking a question seeking real information would be banned from any further presidential "press releases", fired, black listed, and called names by the lapdogs still allowed to sit in the same room as Oz.  Today, armed with NDAA, JSOC, and other "laws" repealing the Constitution, any journalist with the balls to ask Obama a question of any informational value will find themselves in Gitmo with electrodes connected to said balls with no legal means of getting released.

Ohhh, the Monica Lewinsky presidential media contract.

To get close to the prez, you have to suck His dick?

Your self-esteem has got to take a hit when you suck the dick of Goldman Sachs' little bitch.

The Great and Powerful Squeak?

Sounds about right.

In today's world though, anyone with a camera, smart phone, or blog is part of the media.  The whole world is watching.  It's impossible to control what goes on the Internet (although Obama is doing His part for the 1% and signed the ACTA Treaty - Yes, it's a direct violation of law for Obama to sign a treaty without Congressional approval but puppet dictators don't pay much attention to Congresses) so, at the moment, police are trying their best to restrict media from being too close when they start pepper spraying and tazing people for committing the crime of being alive.

Weird as it may seem with the bright colors and the voices in my head getting to say their piece, this blog is part of the media.  The old media used to control the release of propaganda information and, as such, were able to really lead people around.  Today, I (and many, many others) are able to talk about peace and freedom in a medium that can reach the entire planet.

Enemy combatant!  Enemy combatant! 

Smartass has been watching OZTV again.  All Obama, all the time.

With the Internet, it's not only possible to show video of the police shooting people in the head with tear gas canisters because the 1% told them to do it, we can also discuss solutions outside the one party, one percent, solution.

This is obviously motivation to suppress freedom of press and freedom of speech and Freedom in general, especially when you couple it with the fact that the alternative media is pointing its cameras at the depraved actions of the 1% and the government officials that they have bought.  The 1% owned the media and were quite happy to report on anything and everything from six inches of the dead body if it had no relation to them.  Now that the cameras are pointed at the 1%, journalists have to be miles away from where the cops are running over people with their scooters.

Freedom of the Press was a great saying while the 1% owned the press resulting in the fact that there wasn't actually any freedom of the press.  Now that the 1% are actually threatened with freedom of the press, their puppets in the United States government are coming down hard on anyone who dares speak or show the truth. 

This brings us back to the quote from Reporters Without Borders but in the case of the United States, the dictatorship isn't held by the government, it's held by the 1% that own the government.  It was so much easier for them before Occupy Wall Street and that's why the United States was mistakenly ranked at number 20.  Now that the 1% are losing control of information and people are starting to look at them, they are reacting violently and the United States press freedom index ranking is going to continue to tank.  Truth is the greatest threat to the 1% and their puppet government and must be suppressed at all costs (using tax payer money of course - don't want anything ruining this year's multi-billion dollar bonus).

Disempowerment

So,

I was reading articles today on piracy (copyright not Somalia) as part of my research into the topic I posted on Monday and I read something that I didn't give much thought to initially.  I was glancing over Obama's misStatement of the Union address later in the morning and I thought back to what I had read in the piracy article and felt like it had missed the actual key issue.  Here's that part of the article on copyright protection:

"The culture of the Internet also needs to be taken into consideration. Referring to the high rates of illegal downloading, Mr. Gurry said “In order to effect a change in attitude, I believe that we need to re-formulate the question that most people see or hear about copyright and the Internet. People do not respond to being called pirates…They would respond, I believe, to a challenge to sharing responsibility for cultural policy. We need to speak less in terms of piracy and more in terms of the threat to the financial viability of culture in the 21^st Century, because it is this which is at risk if we do not have an effective, properly balanced copyright policy.” (Emphasis mine - Complete Article)

The implication that I got from reading this paragraph is that by calling everyone who has ever used content that media corporations would deem as a violation of copyright, you run the risk of creating an adversarial environment.  Pissing everyone off will probably eventually come back on you but this isn't the true danger to media corporations of yelling "Pirate" every time a teenager shares a song with his friend.

What brought my mind back to the article and caused me to actually think about the problem with the pirate label were a couple of comments made by the Great and Powerful Oz in His delusional speech that is supposed to set the tone for His re-election campaign.

What tone is that?  "Ride the crazy train with me!"

Right off a cliff.

In this case, it was nothing that he directly said but something that I thought was telling, which lead my mind down a path that eventually took me back to the thought about labels.

His mind is like a mouse maze.

If he gets to the point, do we get some cheese?

Here's a couple of those innocuous sentences:

"What's at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values."

"One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn't matter."

For those of you who are Republicrats, it may not be obvious but for me it just jumps right up in my face.  Patriots, heroes, and people with values only come in two flavors, Republican or Democrat.  Independants, you're probably okay as long as you keep flip-flopping between voting for Republicans and Democrats.  Should you ever stop though, you will lose your status as an appropriately obedient part of the one percent's plan and will be an outcast.

And if you aren't with 'em serving them, you're agin' 'em a terrorist.

Here's where the 1% and their mouthpieces, Bush and Obama, make a mistake.

In 2001, the word "terrorist" had a very clear and powerful meaning.  People that blow up buildings with innocent people in them.  A level of evil that is hard to even fathom.  Terrorists were feared and hated because they were terrorists.

Since then, what have Bush and Obama done with the clear and powerful definition of terrorist?  Well, here are some of the things off the top of my head that can earn you the much-feared brand of "Terrorist":

• Not voting for a Republican or Democrat
• Worse yet, making you a level 2 terrorist, is not voting <gasp>
• Displaying a "Don't Tread on Me" flag
• Carrying Ron Paul bumper stickers
• Owning a gun
• Having more than 7 days of food storage

Hell, I live right next to a whole state full of terrorists.  In fact, Mormons in Tennesee had federal agents visit a food storage facility attempting to get a list of names of people who used the facility. 

Now, in branding people as terrorists, the hope of course is to get people to cower to perceived peer pressure and remain obedient to the system.  No one wants to be labeled a terrorist, right?

That may have been true 10 years ago but today, it has become a joke.  Everyone who isn't one of Obama's cult members or who doesn't get their "news" spoon-fed to them by Fox is a terrorist.  The word has lost all of its oomph.  It's meaningless.  Now, if someone tells you something about a terrorist, you have to ask for clarification.  "Do you mean Al Queda terrorist or do you mean Occupy Wall Street terrorist?"

The tactic used to be one of trying to get everyone to aspire to the label of "Patriotic".  As that failed, people were labeled as terrorists or, at least, potential terrorists.  That tactic has been played out as the context of the word has been watered down into uselessness.  The result of this failure to control people mentally and emotionally is obvious in things like the creation of NDAA.  If the one percent can't rely on psy ops to control the public, they'll use the military to keep all the terrorists ordinary citizens in line.  Obedience is the only acceptable behavior.  Anything else is terrorism and must be destroyed.

Attempting to change the behavior of people by applying a negative label to culturally acceptable behavior doesn't change their behavior, it changes the meaning of the word used for the label.

Occupy Wall Street: A View from Outside the Box

So,

I have heard of the movement, uhh, I've seen it on TV.

You aren't going to let that one go, are you?

Did you think he would?

Okay, I've been following Occupy Wall Street closer than President Ohblahblah will admit.

You know it's part of his daily briefings right?

And night time briefings, and noon time, and . . .

Yes, I know.  He's a smacktard but that is not the point of this blog at all. 

Is there going to be a point?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Not a single point, no.  That would not be in keeping with the theme of this blog, would it?

Theme?

<shrug>

First, the good news.  The propaganda media, with the exception of Faux news, has finally come to grips that there is a very clear message to Occupy Wall Street.  It only took them a month to finally admit it.  They were probably hoping that the protesters would go away before now but, unfortunately for them, we are into month two with protests around the entire planet.  They, except for Faux news, have finally started letting the world know what we already knew.  You can't have a country by the people for the people when you auction off votes to the highest bidders.

Ya think?

Didn't we know that before the protests?

Now, the big question that seems to be on everyone's mind is what is the president going to do about this whole thing.  The consensus at this date is that he has to be very careful.  He needs to acknowledge the frustrations of the people that he has screwed over but at the same time he doesn't want to get in bed with him, as one of his spokespeople was quick to point out recently.  I was kind of glad to see that the Great and Powerful Oz was letting other people do the talking for him.  One of the reasons he was elected was because he was more articulate than King George.

So are my farts.

Hard to lower the bar from there.

Without a teleprompter, dude is losing His composure.  I think he'll get re-elected because the Republican candidates are utterly batshit crazybut by year seven, it's going to be like watching an episode of Beavis and Butthead.

Heh, heh, your name is Bush, heh, Bush, heh, heh.

He's got his people StatusQuo.org MoveOn.org and the unions down there trying to steer the whole mess but he can't get too involved.  Faux news is trying so hard to turn Occupy Wall Street into Tea Party Left that it's become a joke.  Now, it's possible and quite likely that many of the Faux news people are really as stoopid as they sound but it's also possible that they have been told to do everything they can to turn OWS into Tea Party Left.  The establishment cannot let this anarchist movement to go on indefinitely.  The people must be divided into the two sides and pitted against each other.  Right now, you have communists, Obama cult members, Independents, Ron Paul republicans, Anarchists, and everyone else meeting every day discussing solutions.  Actual, real, solutions.  This cannot be allowed to continue.  If the people ever figure out the solution, there will be an immense exchange of power and, quite frankly, this is not something that sits well with the people currently in power.

So, Faux news continues to lie to the point where their reporters are hazed if they even bother to show up near Wall Street. 

Because I care so much about the main stream media, I am going to do them a favor and list the top ten reasons why Obama has to pretend to empathize with the 99% while not getting any of their taint on Him:

1-8.  He's Wall Street's bitch.

9.     Faux news is already trying to say that the Tea Party is better than OWS because Tea Partiers don't get arrested.  Tea Partiers also don't get anything changed.

What a coincidence!

I know.

Every day that nothing is done to appease the protesters while beating them over the head with NYPD nightsticks brings this whole thing one day closer to massive violence.  If Obama cozies up to OWS and then it goes terribly awry, the Republicans will use that in the 2012 election.

"Yeah, we should be locked up in padded rooms but at least we aren't inciting violence."

10.   Obama has already alienated much of his base because of his hypocrisy* and getting behind the protesters today and then sending in the National Guard with water canons next week will only make this worse.  He would be giving the Republicans ammo while encouraging even more Democrat voters to stay home on voting day. 

He's stuck in a tough spot between the votes of the 99% and the money of the 1% and he has to walk a tightwire between them.

The media is missing or hiding a key message from OWS but I'm not going to go into now.  I'm sure there will be time.  It doesn't look like this is going to end any time soon.  I know that several people have hoped that snow will drive the protesters away but none of them have sounded too confident that it will actually happen.  With the EU collapsing, there's a good chance that this thing is just barely getting started.

No matter were it goes from here, the conversation and a search for real solutions has been started.  People are waking up.  That has always been the most critical factor.

* It's only hypocrisy if you actually believed Him in the first place.

I saw his lips moving.

Always a clue.

Occupy Wall Street - Spread the Word

 
So,

I am getting closer to becoming a blogger with a regular blogging schedule.  One more final to conquer but I thought that I would make a quick post in response to this:

 Of course, today (day 20 of the protests with something like 100 cities participating?) is the day that the Great and Powerful Oz gets asked about what he thinks about Occupy Wall Street.  Here is his, uh, answer?

 I could add so much to this because He's funny from the first sentence but I just don't have the time. 

Instead, I'll just leave you with one of the comments under the video:

"Translation: uhhhh fuck . . . "

That pretty much sums it up.

Spread the word!

Occupy America

 
So ,

I understand that I have given the news only a passing glance over the last several weeks but still . . .

Last night, burned out on homework, I went around trying to catch up on the very few blogs that I still follow.  That's when I found out that Occupy Wall Street was in its 12th day of existence.  12 days? 

From glancing at headlines during the week, I knew:

• Obama's PR people don't know where Colorado is
• Marisa Tomei went skinny dipping at George Clooney's house
• Cantaloupe from Colorado (or is it Wyoming) is poisonous
• Ashton Kutchner blah, blah, blah, Two and a Half Men (I have no idea)
• Some guy was plotting to blow up the Pentagon (Only one?  The rest are probably hiding in Colorado - hidden from government eyes)
• The US government gives pot to people and bans people from having pot (Hypocrisy?  Say it isn't so!)

You would think that I would have noticed a story about a protest that has been going on for nearly 2 weeks.  Looking around this morning (not at mainstream media obviously), I find that not only are the Wall Street people on day 13 but that protests have sprung up all over the country.  Los Angeles is planning an "official" start for their "Occupy" protest this Saturday.

 I can't say that I am shocked by the lack of media coverage but I still found myself surprised.  If this was happening in Egypt or Tunisia or England, I would have known about it, probably on the first day.  If not, I would have heard about it by day 5 when the police decided that enough was enough and Lt. Tony Baloney started pepper-spraying women who were committing the crime of standing on the sidewalk.  Brave man, officer Bologna is, pepper-spraying helpless women.  Good news though.  NYPD has already said that the use of force was justified, despite the dozens of videos of the incident that show that it clearly wasn't.  And since people are pepper-sprayed every day, this story apparently isn't worthy of making the news.

The first few stories that I came across were actually not about the Occupy Wall Street protest but about the media blackout of the Occupy Wall Street protest.  You know that the Great and Powerful Oz has got to be thinking, "Really?  Now?  You have to do this right now?" as he's out campaigning for an opportunity at 4 more years of killing people (that probably need to be killed, of course - who am I to doubt the Almight Oz?  Did I mention there are war protesters at the Occupy Wall Street protest too?). 

Besides that bit of inconvenience, another problem the media is having is the fact that they they have Truthers and the Tea Party marching with Liberals and Communists.  Who the hell do you blame this on (you know, besides Wall Street or Washington DC - but I repeat myself)?  How do you quickly label and disregard the entire political spectrum?  You know that CNN has organized a think-tank with unlimited caffeine resources with the specific mission of how to spin this if they ever feel forced to report on it.  They did report on the fact that Michael Moore has become part of the protest.  "Damn you Michael Moore!  Didn't you get the blackout memo?  Gimme a double-espresso and a handful of No-Doz."  Can you even begin to imagine the pressure on Obama's writers?  Yikes!

If the protesters end up under all-out attack, do you think the UN will set up a no-fly zone to protect them?  Just a random thought.

Anyway, Occupy <insert your state or city here> is on my radar now and I'll be watching to see how it all plays out.